ISRAEL OFFERS HAND; PALIS SLAP IT AWAY

Olmert: We'll Talk to PA Unity Government If Hamas Recognizes Israel
Israel will negotiate with a Hamas-Fatah unity government if the Islamic group recognizes Israel, renounces violence, and accepts existing peace deals, Prime Minister Olmert said in an interview published Monday in the Palestinian newspaper al-Quds. A Hamas official based in Damascus said Monday that Hamas and Fatah had agreed on former Islamic University president Mohammed Shabir as the next prime minister. In the interview, Olmert said he would be willing to release "a large number" of Palestinian prisoners, but not before Hamas released Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier captured in a cross-border raid in June. (AP/Ha'aretz)

See also Hamas: PA Unity Government Won't Recognize Israel - Avi Issacharoff
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Tuesday the proposed Palestinian unity government would not recognize Israel or accept a two-state solution. (Ha'aretz)

Israel Still Has No Genuine Peace Partner - Daniel Mandel
The Arab desire to dismember Israel, expressed in several wars launched by Arab states, has accompanied Israel from the moment of its birth in 1948. Israeli occupation is a symptom, not a cause, of Arab belligerence. In the 1990s, many Israelis preferred to believe that Arab determination to dismember Israel had given way to acceptance, making a land-for-peace deal possible for the first time. It was a seductive hope, yet despite Israeli flexibility, American diplomatic enthusiasm and European largesse, it failed dismally.

For Palestinians, non-acceptance of Israel trumps statehood. To this day, PA maps and atlases pretend Israel does not exist, PA-salaried clerics call for the murder of Jews, TV and radio broadcasts, popular songs and poetry extol the glories of suicide attacks, textbooks teach that Israel is unfit to live, and streets and colleges are named for suicide bombers. Why the studious avoidance of the abundant evidence of Palestinian intentions and conduct? Because it is apparently difficult to accept that when people say they mean to kill Jews and eliminate Israel, they actually mean it. The writer is a fellow in history at University of Melbourne. (The Age-Australia)