This Isn't The Just Peace You Were Thinking Of

Hamas, the terrorist group that was elected by Palestinians to lead the Palestinian people, says that it wants a just peace. It's just not the just peace you think of:

Hamas called on Monday for talks with Western powers to seek a "just peace" in the Middle East but showed no sign of softening its stance on Israel as it presented its government to the Palestinian parliament.

Hamas's prime minister-designate, Ismail Haniyeh, told the assembly that his cabinet, expected to win a vote of confidence and take office by mid-week, was ready to open a dialogue with the "Quartet" of mediators.

But the United States, grouped in the Quartet with the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, quickly ruled out direct talks with the militant Islamic group unless it renounced violence, accepted interim peace deals and recognized Israel.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev dismissed what he called "double talk" by Hamas, winner of Palestinian elections in January, saying he saw no change of policy by an organization pledged to destroy the Jewish state.

It's a peace without Israel of course.

There's no reason to take Hamas at anything other than its words and deeds. It seeks Israel's destruction. It rallies Palestinians to that cause. It glorifies and extols the virtues of suicide bombers who kill civilians - including women and children.

And they aren't above lying and saying one thing to the Western media and quite another in the Friday sermons to the Palestinians and Arab/Muslim media. They'll use terms like just peace, which are stripped of all meaning when you realize that Hamas refuses to recognize the state of Israel, or that if it does so, it is in order to further the long-term goal of eradicating Israel from the map.

The Palestinians do not produce maps with an Israel standing alongside a Palestinian state. Their map of the region only has a Palestinian state supplanting Israel. Imagery is everything. And there's no reason to think that this talk changes anything.

Hamas is simply trying to buy time to get money coming in from other sources. And, it's trying to influence the outcoming of the Israeli elections later this week. Hamas is taking a calculated gamble that saying the money quotes may influence the Left wingers to try for peace with Hamas despite any rational basis for those Left wingers to believe or trust Hamas instead of continuing with the disengagement plan and setting borders unilaterally.