“We need to warn against any attempt to bring about the collapse of the Hamas government,” says former Israeli minister Shlomo Ben-Ami.

Ben-Ami, who served as minister for public security and later for foreign affairs, played a key negotiating role during the Middle East peace summit at Camp David in July 2000. Those talks were conducted between former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former chairman of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

“We have the thought that when you discard supposedly an extremist option, what you get is a more moderate option. But you might get a more extremist option,” Ben-Ami told IPS in an interview following a meeting on the Middle East held in Madrid. “You may also have a civil war. See the Algerian example, when in 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front was elected and the army toppled it. This led to a civil war that still persists.”
antiwar.com

Abbas urges calm after new Hamas-Fatah clashes
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas has issued a plea for calm among supporters of the rival Hamas and Fatah factions as fresh armed clashes left at least 13 people wounded, including five schoolchildren.

A day after three people were killed in internecine violence, gunfire again erupted outside the Gaza City home of a Fatah leader, leaving the children aged between seven and 14 caught up in the crossfire as they walked to school.

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