AS HAMAS MANAGES TO ISOLATE ITSELF EVEN FROM OTHER ARABS:

Israel Encouraged by Egypt Summit (Jim Teeple, 05 June 2006, VOA News)

Following his summit with Egyptian Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he plans to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the near future.

Israeli newspapers on Monday report that senior Israeli officials are encouraged by what they describe as a "warm and friendly" atmosphere coming out of the meeting between Mr. Olmert and Mr. Mubarak. The two men held private talks for an hour and a half, Sunday, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.

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Palestinian support 'crashes' in Europe (David Horovitz, Jun. 3, 2006, THE JERUSALEM POST)

New public opinion surveys conducted among "opinion elites" in Europe show that support for the Palestinians has fallen precipitously, according to a leading international pollster, Stan Greenberg, who has been briefing Israeli leaders on his findings in the past few days. [...]

He singled out France as the country where attitudes had changed most dramatically. Three years ago, 60 percent of French respondents said they took a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and of that 60%, four out of five backed the Palestinians. Today, by contrast, 60% of French respondents did not take a side in the conflict, and support for the Palestinians had dropped by half among those who did express a preference. [...]

At the root of the change, said Greenberg, was a fundamental remaking in Europe of the "framework" through which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viewed.

Three years ago, he said, the conflict was perceived "in a post-colonial framework."

There was a sense "that Europe could cancel out its own colonial history by taking the 'right' side" - the Palestinian side. Yasser Arafat was viewed as "an anti-colonial, liberation leader." The US was seen as a global imperial power, added Greenberg, and the fact that it was backing Israel only added to the "instinctive" sense of the Palestinians as victims.

France, with the largest Muslim population - moreover an entirely Arab Muslim population - with the direct experience of Algeria and the most anti-US positions, was most prey to this mindset.

Today, by contrast, the Europeans "are focused on fundamentalist Islam and its impact on them," he said. The Europeans were now asking themselves "who is the moderate in this conflict, and who is the extremist? And suddenly it is the Palestinians who may be the extremists, or who are allied with extremists who threaten Europe's own society."

An increasing proportion of Europeans are concluding that "maybe the Palestinians are not the colonialist victims" after all.