Translated material
Hamas is back in Moscow
Russian aid to Palestinians in exchange for Israelis
Unusual guests are coming to Russia today, who will immediately be taken under special protection - these are the leaders of the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, known as Hamas . This timethe excitement around the visit will be less than in March 2006, when the head of the Politburo of the “brother” organization Khaled Meshal came to Moscow for the first time. (Members of Hamas call each other “brothers” regardless of rank.) But even now, Russian partners such as the United States and especially Israel will be dissatisfied with these two-day talks in Moscow.If Russia does not consider this organization “terrorist,” then the Israelis and Americans have no doubts about this and do not consider it possible to conduct a dialogue with it. Ten years ago, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad even tried to kill Khaled Mashaal on the street of the Jordanian capital Amman: agents injected poison into his ear, but an international scandal broke out, after which the Israelis delivered the antidote to the Palestinian. Moscow takes into account the fact that Palestinian Islamists won a resounding victory in the January 2006 elections and represent a force in the autonomy seeking independence.
This time, Hamas leaders received an invitation to visit the Russian capital immediately after a meeting of the four international mediators for the Middle East settlement . The heads of the foreign affairs agencies of Russia, the United States, the European Union and the UN met on February 21 in Berlin , and Sergei Lavrov notified Condoleezza Rice of possible contacts with Hamas . The mediators are looking for solutions to two problems at once: how to reconcile the Israelis and Arabs and how to prevent civil war between the Palestinians themselves.
According to Vremya Novostei, Moscow confirmed two meetings with the Palestinians: with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his deputy Alexander Saltanov. The Hamas leaders are counting on other contacts, but a meeting with President Putin (there were rumors about it even during the last visit) is out of the question.
The delegation is headed by the head of the movement's Politburo, Khaled Meshal, who lives in the Syrian capital Damascus (the Israelis do not allow him into the Palestinian Authority). According to our information, his deputy Musa Abu Marzuk and another member of the Politburo, Sami Khatyr, will be with him. Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan will arrive from Beirut. There may be two or three more lesser-known activists present.
“Our visit has three goals,” Osama Hamdan told Vremya Novostei yesterday. The leaders of the movement will tell the Russians in detail about the agreements between Palestinian factions that were reached on February 8 in Mecca through the mediation of Saudi Arabia. Moscow will also be informed about the formation of a government of national unity in the autonomy, the composition of which should be announced by the end of the week. Finally, and this is the main thing, the Palestinians will turn to Russia for help. “Any support from Moscow for our new government, political or material, will be accepted with gratitude,” Osama Hamdan told Vremya Novostey.
Russia advocates lifting the financial blockade imposed by the West on the Palestinian Authority after Hamas' victory in last year's elections. Immediately after them, Moscow was the first to transfer $10 million to the Palestinians, which was spent on final exams and the improvement of hospitals. Nevertheless, Russia did not supply the Palestinians, although it intended to, with the armored personnel carriers they requested for the needs of the security forces. As a high-ranking Kremlin official admitted in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, “the Arabs were supposed to receive up to fifty cars for free, but due to the turbulent situation in the autonomy, deliveries were postponed.” At the same time, Russia is discussing the provision of a new tranche of financial assistance to the Arabs, but its spending will be strictly controlled.
Moscow will again demand that Hamas release Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit , captured in the summer of 2006 near the border with the autonomy. The other day, Khaled Meshal held negotiations in Cairo, where the Egyptians got him to list the conditions under which the corporal could be released. Among them is the release of several hundred Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. "We are waiting for the Israelis' response," says Osama Hamdan. If the exchange takes place in the coming days, then Russian diplomacy may well claim this as its own merit, which would be the first tangible result from meetings with the leaders of the movement. “Russia will not regret inviting Hamas,” Khaled Mashal told our newspaper in Moscow back in March last year. It's time to prove it.