ON HIS recent Middle East tour, US President George Bush stated that a "viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent" Palestinian state was central to his bold goal of a peace settlement within a year. He unwittingly pointed to a critical oversight as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas began the first substantive peace talks since 2001: Mr Abbas no longer controls the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Hamas has the will and the weapons to sabotage any progress. Gaza is now the centre of hostilities and must be part of any solution.
Age 23 Jan 2008
Bush unwittingly makes a good point (yes, I know, he unwittingly does many things). Hamas, not Abbas, controls Gaza. What the West needs to do, by diplomatic means, is convince Hamas to let go of its central policy goal of the annihilation of the state of Israel. Wittingly or unwittingly, Bush is unlikely to achieve that goal in the remaining months of his failed presidency. But there's more to the West than America. There's Kevin Rudd, for example....
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