CHENEY BLAMES HAMAS, SYRIA AND IRAN FOR NO PROGRESS ON PEACE; FORGETS TO BLAME ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS

Dick Cheney on his last day in the Middle East claims that the obstruction to a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians is Hamas. Furthermore, Cheney claims Iran and Syria are supporting Hamas because they don't want to see peace in the region. This sounds like a lot of bull, of the same type as the assertion that there was proof that Saddam Hussein was forging an alliance with Al Qaeda, used by Bush and Cheney as a prelude to the invasion of Iraq.

The BBC reports:

"US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said Palestinian militant group Hamas, along with Iran and Syria, is trying to torpedo the Middle East peace process."

Recall that Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians in January 2007. Yet Bush and Cheney term it a "terrorist organization" because Israel considers it that. As a result, both the U.S. and Israel refuse to deal withHamas in any prospective agreement. No wonder that Hamas is not in sync with Abu Mazen in making a deal with Israel and its surrogate, the United States.

The real block to a peace accord is Israel which continues to allow settlements in the occupied territories. More and more land belonging to Palestinians is illegally usurped by Israeli settlers at the point of a gun. Jimmy Carter talked about "apartheid" in his book on the Israeli-Palestinian discord. How about "ethnic cleansing"? Building Israeli settlements on land seized from the Palestinians during the 1967 War smacks of ethnic cleansing and is illegal and unjustified.

Cheney tries to further demonize Iran and Syria in the conflict. He claims these two countries back the "terrorists." How about all the other Islamic countries in the Middle East? Is there any country that does not back Hamas? Is there any country in that region that supports Israel? If Cheney wants to condemn supporters of Hamas, he should apportion a lot of it to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, erstwhile allies of the U.S.