For more than 60 years the Middle East has been a powder keg just waiting for the right fuse to ignite it…..both sides of the Israel/Palestine issue have done very little actually help the prospect of peace and yet there is always the hope that these conflicting players will come to their sense and find a way to ‘give peace a chance’……

The Jerusalem Post is reporting:

Hamas has accepted Israel’s right to exist and would be prepared to nullify its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, Aziz Dwaik, Hamas’s most senior representative in the West Bank, said on Wednesday.

During the meeting in Hebron, Dwaik stressed that other Hamas leaders, including Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, have voiced support for the idea of establishing an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 boundaries.

Asked whether he might be condemned as naïve for believing Hamas, Abrahams said, “People might say that I’m naïve, so let them. But I’m prepared to give them [Hamas] a chance because I’ve got faith and confidence in Dwaik and Haniyeh. We can’t allow 1.5 million to be festering in the Gaza Strip while the majority of them are good and well-educated.”

Abrahams said that his decision to engage Hamas was aimed at “preventing bloodshed on both sides.” He said he was encouraged by the massive support he found among the Jewish community in Britain for the idea of talking to Hamas.

I for one would like to believe that peace is possible….but I have seen many a good idea go down in flames…shot to pieces by one side or the other…..unfortunately the conflict has become an institution for both sides…a way of life that will be hard to break…

For now, it looks promising but I have been sadly disappointed too many times to think it is a settlement that all can live with in the future…..