Netanyahu urges sanctions after Hamas win

"As a first step, we should stop transferring funds to the Palestinians," the hawkish Likud party leader told public radio.

"There has to be a limit to the absurd. There can be no question of financing an entity whose declared aim is our destruction," he added Sunday.

Israel currently pays back around 50 million dollars every month to the Palestinian Authority as a reimbursement for customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports.

The spluttering Palestinian economy, which has nosedived during the past five years of Middle East violence, is heavily dependent on the Israeli receipts and on international aid.

Netanyahu also called for Palestinians to be barred from entering Israel and to expand the route of the West Bank separation barrier, which already cuts into the occupied territory, in order to incorporate more Jewish settlements.

"What's more, we must also be clear that there can be no question of other unilateral withdrawals" as carried out by Israel last summer in the Gaza Strip and a small corner of the northern West Bank.

Netanyahu, who resigned from the government over the pullout from Gaza, has argued that the withdrawal served to strengthen Hamas which claimed its fighters had forced the army and settlers out of the territory.

"Faced with such a fierce enemy, a 'Hamastan' supported by Iran, we must be very strong," he added.

Netanyahu is expected to play heavily on the radical Islamists' landslide victory over the long-ruling secular Fatah faction's in last Wednesday's election in his party's campaign for Israel's own general election on March 28.

Meanwhile, the leader of the centre-left Labour party said that there could be no question of Israel "holding negotiations with Hamas which is appealing for our destruction."

"Israel must unite around the Tsahal (the army) and take advantage of a two or three year freeze (of the peace process) to address our own domestic problems and reinforce our social welfare and education systems," said Amir Peretz.

Polls have shown that the Kadima party of Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is likely to emerge as the largest party in the Israeli election, but observers believe that the lead could easily be whittled away if the situation on the ground unravels.

Anxious to avoid any suggestion that it is being soft towards Hamas, the movement behind dozens of suicide attacks in the last five years, Kadima's Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said that leaders of Hamas would have "no immunity" if they persisted in "terrorist attacks" against Israel.

"Hamas may have won 76 (out of 132) seats in the parliament but it remains a terrorist organisation and we cannot bestow any kind of legitimacy on it," said Mofaz.

"We will not talk with them (the Hamas leadership) until they disarm," he added.

Source

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.