The Washington Post
JERUSALEM — When the emir of Qatar paid the first visit by a head of state to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip last week, there were two different reactions from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
In one statement, Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the ministry, accused
the emir, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, of backing a terrorist
organization and having “thrown peace under the bus.”
But an Arabic-language spokesman for the ministry, Lior Ben Dor, told
Radio Sawa, a U.S.- funded station heard across the Middle East, that
Israel welcomed the visit of the emir, who pledged generous financial aid.
“Since
our withdrawal from Gaza, the goal has been that Arab states come and
help the residents of Gaza,” Ben Dor said, referring to the Israeli
pullout in 2005.
The double message was a symptom of the
unraveling of an Israeli policy toward Gaza that was put in place after
Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the
United States, seized control of the territory in June 2007.
