The deaths of three Israeli teenagers allegedly killed by the Islamic terrorist group Hamas are proof that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority cannot co-exist, says Ron Kampeas, of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
"The Israelis, the Netanyahu government, did appreciate [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas, not just his condemnation of the kidnappings, but the fact that he did it in the heart of the Arab world in Arabic in Saudi Arabia," Kampeas told Ed Berliner on "MidPoint" on
Newsmax TV on Wednesday.
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In late May, the Palestinian Authority said it was establishing a new unity government that included Hamas.
"What the Israelis want to see now is Abbas acknowledging that this kidnapping, these killings, are proof positive that you can't coexist with Hamas," Kampeas explained.
The Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency said that if this situation "does precipitate a break between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, that might provide a path back towards cooperation."
Kampeas explained that "Hamas itself is not exactly unified."
"Within the organization there are those who really do favor the unity that Abbas advanced in the talks, among them Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Gaza Strip of the Hamas government there," he said.
"There are those who favor what they call an armed struggle, which includes the terrorist attacks," he added.
Kampeas contends that "these killings might be an effort, and maybe even a successful effort, to scuttle the unity talks between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority."
The Obama administration has called on Israel and the Palestinians to renew peace talks, but Kampeas says that such an idea is "pie in the sky . . . in the immediate near future because tensions, feelings are so raw because of the discovery of the bodies of the three teenagers."
He says "there just might not be anything" the United States can do at this point.
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