NORWAY CUTS TIES WITH HAMAS

Norway says it has severed Hamas ties (JPost)
President Shimon Peres had planned to lambaste the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr-Store over Norway's contacts with Hamas and Hizbullah when the two men met in Jerusalem on Monday.

But he was stopped in his tracks when Gahr-Store told him that Norway had now severed the contacts it had opened with Hamas during the period of the Palestinian unity government.

Nonetheless, Peres did make the point that it was important to clarify to Hamas that no nation (in the free world) would finance terror or the firing of rockets into Sderot and the other residential areas close to Gaza.

It was essential to emphasize that the international community would not condone terror or the violation of democracy through the use of violence as practiced by Hamas, said Peres, who also noted the Hamas connection with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hizbullah in Lebanon. There are also indications, he added, that Hamas is affiliated with al-Qaida.

Hamas’s “Developments” by Emanuele Ottolenghi (Contentions)
When Hamas and Fatah established a national unity government in March of 2007, Norway was the first Western country to recognize this new government, ending Hamas’s diplomatic isolation. Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gar Store announced today, during a visit to Jerusalem, that his government has reversed its policy and no longer recognizes Hamas.

Norway’s decision is a welcome one. Still, one cannot help noticing that, as early as April of 2006, Norway had invited Hamas representatives to visit in order “to maintain dialogue,” on the grounds that Hamas plays “an important role in developments in the Middle East.” It’s not clear which kinds of development the Norwegians had in mind. But I’m fairly sure that executing opponents in the streets in front of their families, throwing a tied-up 28-year-old cook off the roof of a fifteen-story building, and forcibly converting a Christian scholar to Islam are not “developments” at all, but war crimes or gross human rights violations.