Hamas warns Canada it risks making enemies out of Palestinians

Palestinian foreign minister Mahmud Zahar, reacting angrily to Canadian counterpart Peter MacKay's refusal to meet him while on a Middle East visit, told The Globe and Mail newspaper Canadians should oust the "extremist" Conservative government.

Zahar said he would have asked MacKay why Canada was the first country to suspend aid to the newly-sworn-in Hamas-led Palestinian government in March, even ahead of the United States.

"I would ask him very simply: What is the moral basis for these sanctions and boycott?" he said, adding that the measures hurt the Palestinian people rather than the Hamas government.

Zahar said Canada was defending US and Israeli interests by forbidding its diplomats from having any contact with Hamas.

"What is Israel providing you? Nothing. What are you achieving from such policies? What have you gained? Nothing, except the hatred of innocent people. If you would like to be the tail of the American dog, it's up to you. Or you can be a leading country, a linkage," he said.

"The question is very simple: Why do you refuse to meet us. As a human being, as a man, what is preventing you from meeting us? We are not eating human flesh," Zahar was quoted as saying.

"Canadians have to change their extremist government, or else they're going to lose their credibility as a neutral state. You cannot create a new enemy without a price," he added.

MacKay met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday after weekend meetings with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who leads the Fatah faction, Hamas' rival.

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