Newsweek talked to Ziad Abu Amr, who is expected to be appointed PA foreign minister. Amr (pictured) dismisses concerns that a national unity government will serve as a fig leaf for Hamas:
Even if there’s a new cabinet, the Hamas stance is still at odds with the international community’s demands. They reject Israel’s right to exist, for instance.
The government is not an individual enterprise. You have [a number of] cabinet members who are non-Hamas. It doesn’t matter if there is a majority, even if you have a small number of non-Hamas cabinet members it’s going to make a difference. [But] this is going to be a different government. This is not a Hamas government. This is a national unity government. You are going to see things you haven’t seen in the last six or seven months, there are going to be real discussions, real debates in the cabinet, votes—it is different.
But there are also calls from Hamas for revenge, to start suicide bombings again, and to target Americans.
I don’t take this seriously. I don’t think this represents the mainstream in Hamas.
But people are still shooting, bombs are still going off.
I wouldn’t even call it low-intensity warfare. It’s something symbolic, people trying to remind you “Listen: we are here. We cannot be dismissed as irrelevant.” The question is, how do you put an end to all of these manifestations of vio-lence? This requires a national-unity government.
Will Hamas really change its spots, or will the media buy into another white-wash?
