India and China have issued statements of support for the new Palestinian unity government which comprises the rival factions of Hamas and Fatah. The announcements from both countries came a day after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a cabinet. The unity government is controversial because Hamas is regarded as a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States. Hamas is an Islamist group and does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Fatah meanwhile focuses primarily on Palestinian nationalism within a secular framework. The two groups had been engaged in conflict for years but recently reconciled in April 2014. Accordingly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lobbied world powers to refrain from recognizing the new Palestinian unity government.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement welcoming the new Palestinian unity government on June 3. ”We believe Palestine’s internal reconciliation will strengthen the solidarity of the Palestinian people, and promote the founding of an independent state for Palestinians and peaceful coexistence between Palestine and Israel,” said foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei, according to Xinhua. “China believes peaceful negotiation is the only way to realize Palestine-Israel peace,” he added. The Chinese foreign ministry additionally called for the international community to support a negotiated solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
On Tuesday, India too welcomed the new unity government. According to the Press Trust of India, the Indian government expressed hope that the new Palestinian government ”would be able to resume talks with Israel in a pragmatic and constructive spirit to find a mutually acceptable political solution to the decades-old issue.” ”India supports the formation of the Unity Government of Fatah and Hamas, led by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah,” a Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson reportedly said. “This is in keeping with India’s stance of supporting the reconciliation efforts between the West Bank and Gaza, key to a sustainable Palestinian State.” The Indian ministry also clarified that it expected the unity government to uphold the Palestinian Authority’s prior obligations from earlier peace talks, stating that ”India has consistently supported a peaceful and negotiated solution between Palestine and Israel, resulting in a sovereign, independent, viable and united State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side and at peace with Israel, within secured and recognized borders.”
It remains to be seen how Israel’s Likud government will react to the statements of support from India and China for the unity government. “I call on all responsible elements in the international community not to rush to recognize a Palestinian government which has Hamas as part of it and which is dependent on Hamas,” Netanyahu told his cabinet. Still, Israel has important relations with both India and China. India and Israel cooperate on defense and security matters. Additionally, India’s Hindu nationalists — who recently formed a government there — are generally supportive of Israel’s status as a Jewish state and laud Israeli nationalism. The Narendra Modi government’s willingness to immediately issue a statement in support of the Palestinian unity government was thus unexpected. China also has developed its relations with Israel considerably since the two states established diplomatic relations in 1992. The two countries have a burgeoning economic partnership and Israel exports military technology to China.
I think that India and China respects Israel and talks about Hamas as it is PK, they lose little. And for Israel to tell them what it means – that is nothing for media! According to some media, Obama has talked with Hamas for months simply to destroy for Israel Google for
Obama reveals Israeli military secrets
and you get loads of hits. He has actively done his best to really destroy the life of the Israelis – why Netanyahu behaves like he was in love with that guy is impossible to comprehend. He should be cold and not tell a single military thing that is not about cooperation!
Bear Klein Said:
BUSH DID IT
@ honeybee:
Good Spurs shooting in 4th quarter 14/16 does not hurt either. I bet the A/C goes out in the second half everywhere Lebron James plays from now on!
@ Bear Klein:
The Heat can’t take the Heat !!!!!!!!!!!!
It is the ISRAEL in PIECES process
@ yamit82: You are on to something here:
…
1) The speech by the president of the Czech Republic at the reception held to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day is the finest I have heard from any leader.
2) “They love me” syndrome. India is doing business with Israel and we ascribe positive moral motives. China is doing business with Israel. But each leader unseemly hurried to recognize the new evil “unity government; as is the rest of the world. Except Canada and Harper.
All this is happening because Israeli leadership do NOT stand strong and do what is right for their OWN people. My mother used to say, “Give them a finger, and they take a whole hand.” The Israeli leadership needs my mother.
@ yamit82:
I like you 🙂
Israel supports an independent Taiwan and Tibet, and supports Pakistan’s claims to Kashmir. Basque independence. There are literally hundreds of separatist movements Israel could support in the nicest proper diplomatic language construct that I’m sure would piss off nations like Russia, India, China Spain and France… Let’s not forget the Falklands and Britain and Argentina.
Looks like stupid BB’s chickens are coming home to roost. The stinking Weasel has outweaseled himself and us.
Best for Israel to shut up and destroy the PA, quietly. Jews talk too much, complain too much and always cave to pressure against our own interest. Stop threatening and do it. Egypt supports the Unity government then let them open the gates to Sinai and Gaza, support the Gazans and provide them with all their essential stuff, Palis in the West Bank and Gazans can link up through Egypt.
China and India can say whatever they want because there is no downside from their perspective. Israel need not pick fights with those who support the PA/Hamas union, Israel should just do absolutely NOTHING that aids the Palis in anyway….Let them declare a state on Lands they control and we annex the rest. Israel should pull it’s security protection from Abbas and the rest of his banditos. Let Hamas or some other crazies bump him off. A Hamas takeover of the Palis controlled West bank would be a green light for Israel to liquidate the Hamas and all of the remnants of Arafat.
As long as Israel maintains the fiction that the PA are Peace Partners we will always be on the defensive………
We are back in 1938. Apparently only the Czech president Milos Zeman has the courage to tell the truth:
Speech by the president of the Czech Republic at the reception held to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day
May 26, 2014
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me thank you for the invitation to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day. There are dozens of days of independence being celebrated every year in the Czech Republic. Some I may attend, others I cannot. There is one I can never miss, however: it’s the Israeli Independence Day.
There are states with whom we share the same values, such as the political horizon of free elections or a free market economy. However, no one threatens these states with wiping them off the map. No one fires at their border towns; no one wishes that their citizens would leave their country. There is a term, political correctness. This term I consider to be a euphemism for political cowardice. Therefore, let me not be cowardly.
It is necessary to clearly name the enemy of human civilisation. It is international terrorism linked to religious fundamentalism and religious hatred. As we may have noticed after 11th of September, this fanaticism has not been focused on one state exclusively. Muslim fanatics recently kidnapped 200 young Christian girls in Nigeria. There was a hideous assassination in the flower of Europe in the heart of European Union in a Jewish museum in Brussels. I will not let myself being calmed down by the declaration that there are only tiny fringe groups behind it. On the contrary, I am convinced that this xenophobia, and let’s call it racism or anti-Semitism, emerges from the very essence of the ideology these groups subscribe to.
So let me quote one of their sacred texts to support this statement: “A tree says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. A stone says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” I would criticize those calling for the killing of Arabs, but I do not know of any movement calling for mass murdering of Arabs. However, I know of one anti-civilisation movement calling for the mass murder of Jews.
After all, one of the paragraphs of the statutes of Hamas says: “Kill every Jew you see.” Do we really want to pretend that this is an extreme viewpoint? Do we really want to be politically correct and say that everyone is nice and only a small group of extremists and fundamentalists is committing such crimes?
Michel de Montaigne, one of my favourite essayists, once wrote: “It is gruesome to assume that it must be good that comes after evil. A different evil may come.” It started with the Arab Spring which turned into an Arab winter, and a fight against secular dictatorships turned into fights led by Al-Qaeda. Let us throw away political correctness and call things by their true names. Yes, we have friends in the world, friends with whom we show solidarity. This solidarity costs us nothing, because these friends are not put into danger by anyone.
The real meaning of solidarity is a solidarity with a friend who is in a trouble and in danger, and this is why I am here.
— Miloš Zeman, president of Czech republic, Hilton Hotel, 26th of May 2014
A watershed speech by Czech President Miloš Zeman
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2014/06/a-watershed-speech-by-czech-president.html