Israel and Hamas united on ditching road map

Since Hamas won the Palestinian election and refused to recognise the Jewish state, renounce violence or accept previous agreements, Ehud Olmert, Israel's acting Prime Minister, is no longer even paying lip service to the road map presented by the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.

Instead, Kadima is drafting a four-year plan to evacuate at least 17 outlying West Bank settlements. If, as the polls suggest, it wins the general election on 28 March, it will unilaterally draw a new border that will keep major settlement blocks under Israeli rule.

In Moscow on Saturday, Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of Hamas's political bureau, rejected a Russian request to accept international terms for a dialogue. Although Hamas is floating the possibility of an extended ceasefire, its long-term objective remains an Islamic state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. "We believe that Israel has no right to exist," said Mr Meshal, the target of a failed Israeli assassination attempt in Amman in 1997.

If Israel wanted peace, he maintained, it would have to agree first to withdraw to the 1967 borders, release all Palestinian prisoners and acknowledge the refugees' right to return to their old homes inside what is now Israel. No Israeli government, left or right, has been prepared to take that as a starting point for negotiations. Mahmoud Zahar, a Gaza Hamas leader, said yesterday: "Our tie to Israel is that of a nation and its occupiers. It is not going to be in any way a relationship based on legitimate neighbours, or partners, or allies."

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article349541.ece