Friday, March 17, 2006

Hamas member to attend EU summit

When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

When he's targeting Israelis.

As I predicted here, The EU is all set to begin business as usual with the Hamas government.

The EU, in spite of classifying Hamas as a terorist group has invited a 5 person Palestinian delegation to the EU's Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) whichn includes at least one member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from the victorious Hamas-affiliated Change and Reform List.

One European source told the Jerusalem Post that EMPA was prepared to host Change and Reform List members so long as they were not self-declared Hamas members. But an official EMPA spokeswoman said the PLC had selected its own delegation, that it was hoped in Brussels that none of the delegates would prove to be Hamas members, but that it was "not clear" what EMPA would do if one or more turned out to be Hamas members or affiliated with Hamas.

In other words, don't ask, don't tell.

The EMPA is an official EU body. Set up in 2003, it brings together parliamentarians from the 25 EU nations and the EU's 10 Mediterranean partners: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, the PA, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

In a more overt sign of changing European attitudes to Hamas, the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly decided Wednesday to invite a Hamas member of the PLC to its next session, in April in Strasbourg, France.

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