The only games being played these days are not in Torino but also in Moscow, where Vladimir Putin has invited Hamas leaders later this month for meetings, according to Reuters.
Planned talks in Russia with a delegation from Palestinian group Hamas may take place before the end of this month, a Russian official was quoted as saying on Saturday by Interfax news agency.
“It is quite possible,” Interfax quoted Middle East envoy Alexander Kalugin as saying when asked if the Moscow talks would happen this month.
He said contact had already been made with Hamas to agree details of the visit.
Khaled Meshaal, Hamas’ top leader who lives in exile in Damascus, would most likely lead the delegation to Moscow, Kalugin said.
What’s behind this? On the surface it’s just Old Soviet Russia making the familiar Middle East power play, but I suspect more. I wonder if Putin is not using his burgeoning relations with a Hamas as a lever to calm things with the Chechens. A spoken/unspoken deal may be in the offing. Whether it has a prayer of lasting is another matter.
Putin was a General in the old KGB and he hasn’t forgotten his ways of doing business apparently. Its always nice to have a pocketfull of murderers when you’ve had his upbringing. Its said that Yassar Arafat was a KGB agent according to a Wall Street Journal aricle, the Hamas boys are probably working for Putin and are just checking in for orders on who to eliminate.
Roger:
If Putin thinks that playing footsie with Hamas will score him any points with the Muslim world regarding the Chechens he is living in a dream world. The leaders of the Islamo fascism have studied Lenin’s theory of “neither peace or war” regarding international relations. They will take what they can get from the Russians and then when the moment is right they will join their Muslim brothers in their world wide attempts to create seperate Muslim theocracies anywhere Muslims live. They may temporarily dial down the murderous violence but the cause will never be given up, it will just be delayed. And lets face it, the land where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion took hold the strongest is always a good place for people committed to the destrcution of the Jewish people to lay their heads. The longer Putin, and everyone else in the West, delays responding to the declaration of war on the non-Muslim world that the Islamo fascists have declared the longer this bloody battle will go on.They are not searching for peace. For them it is victory or Hell. They may take a break, but they will never stop.
“Whether it has a prayer of lasting is another matter.”
C’mon, Roger – you know the answer to that one.
Any deal made with the islamonazis will last precisely as long as they think it benefits them.
Then they’ll renege on the deal by cutting off the infidel’s head.
I can see the mutual attraction:
They are both totalitarian thugs, they both hate Jews. and they both brutally slaughter Muslims who get in their way.
Curmudgeon:
You bring up a valuable point that is often ignored in discussion of this conflict. Any Muslim who dares to speak out against the tactics of IF’s is marked for destruction. Yes, there are wonderful moderate Muslims who deplore the beheadings, kidnappings, and all of the assorted atrocities that are beinging committed in the name of Allah but they know if they speak out strongly they are put in the same category as other infidels marked for destruction. The Islamo Fascists are at war with there own people who don’t support there cause just as brutally as they are against non-Muslim infidels. The latest Sunni Mosque bombing in Iraq is the perfect example of their twisted logic. And they are not shy about openly stating their plans yet there are sniveling fools in the west that ignore their words and think that they don’t mean what they say. Even after they follow through on their promises. Now that the E.U. has promised self censorship of the press in reponse to the violent protest and they point to the peacefull protests of today and say “see, if we are reasonable the violence will stop.” Well, of course. They forced the spineless West to abandon one it’s most precious ideal, freedom of speech and the press, and now that they have what they want they suspend the violence. For now.
You left out Iran, the major sponsors of Hamas. It’s Iran that can deliver Chechen terrorists to the Russians. And Iran has done just that in recent months…I guess you could say that Iran’s the middlemullah, huh?