Left-wing megadonor and billionaire George Soros blasted the U.S. and Israel for not recognizing terror group Hamas as a legitimate government in an op-ed 16 years ago.
The New York Post recounted Friday how in a 2007 Financial Times op-ed, the wealthy progressive blasted the U.S. government for supporting Israel’s decision not to work with Hamas after it won an election to govern Gaza the previous year.
Last weekend, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and murdered over 1,200 people, including 27 Americans. They also kidnapped approximately 150 people.
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In his piece, titled, "America and Israel Must Open the Door to Hamas," Soros claimed, "The Bush administration is again committing a blunder in the Middle East by supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas."
He argued that the decision impeded peace between Israel and the Palestinian people and the Middle East at large. He wrote, "This precludes any progress towards a peace settlement at a time when such progress could help avert conflagration in the greater Middle East."
Israel condemned Hamas’ election in 2006, as the terror group’s main goal is to establish a Palestinian state including the city of Jerusalem as its capital by employing violence.
The billionaire added that the U.S. and Israel’s hope for new elections to deny Hamas’ majority is "a hopeless strategy, because Hamas would boycott early elections and, even if their outcome resulted in Hamas’s exclusion from the government, no peace agreement would hold without Hamas support."
He noted that, "If Israel had accepted the results of the election, that might have strengthened the more moderate political wing. Unfortunately, the ideology of the ‘war on terror’ does not permit such subtle distinctions."
Despite Hamas’ extremist and violent ambitions, Soros argued that Israel must negotiate with the group for its own benefit.
He said, "Defenders of the current policy argue that Israel cannot afford to negotiate from a position of weakness. But Israel’s position is unlikely to improve as long as it pursues its current course."
Soros accused Israel of adopting heavy-handed retaliation tactics against Hamas violence, saying, "Military escalation – not just an eye for an eye but roughly 10 Palestinian lives for every Israeli one – has reached its limit."
He also urged Israel and U.S to loosen the requirement that Hamas and Palestinian authorities recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state, stating, "that could be made a condition for an eventual settlement rather than a precondition for negotiations."
The op-ed concluded with a jab towards President George W. Bush’s "war on terror" at the time, claiming it had encouraged Israel to make these errors regarding Hamas. "Demonstrating military superiority is not sufficient as a policy for dealing with the Palestinian problem. There is now the chance of a political solution with Hamas brought on board by Saudi Arabia. It would be tragic to miss out on that prospect because the Bush administration is mired in the ideology of the war on terror."
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