In Israel, some on the right support talks with Hamas
(Read article summary)A newspaper poll indicated that 53 percent of Likud party supporters favor talks with Islamist Hamas under certain conditions. Overall, 57 percent of Israelis back the idea.
The left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz published poll results on Friday showing that 57 percent of Israelis are in favor of talking to the militant Islamist organization Hamas under certain conditions. That position was put forward earlier this week by former defense minister Shaul Mofaz, a leading politician in the opposition party Kadima. (Read more about Mr. Mofaz’s new peace plan here.)
Not surprisingly, 72 percent of Kadima voters shared Mofaz’s willingness to talk with Hamas, whose control of the Gaza Strip would make any deal with the mainstream Fatah faction necessarily incomplete. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party are strongly opposed to talking to Hamas, whose charter calls for replacing Israel with an Islamic state in Palestine.
But interestingly, 53 percent of Israelis who support Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party also support talks with Hamas, though the Haaretz article did not spell out exactly what conditions Hamas would have to fulfill.
