Palestinians must first meet conditions

South China Morning Post ran my letter today:

Palestinians must first meet conditions

I refer to your editorial, "Israel must seize chance for peace" (May 5).

I think a more logical headline would have been: "Palestinians must meet preconditions."

You say, "Israel is letting a golden chance to make peace with Palestinians slip by with its refusal to negotiate with a unified government".

But later you said the "unified Palestinian government has to first meet three conditions set eight years ago: recognition of Israel; a renunciation of violence; and acceptance of previous deals struck between the [Palestine Liberation Organisation] and Israel. If the PLO and Hamas can alter their positions, there is no reason why [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu should not also be forward-looking". Indeed. But that is a very big "if".

And these preconditions are surely more fundamental than Israel's failure to release Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has now become part of that unified government in Palestine. Article 7 of the Hamas Charter urges Muslims to fight the Jews.

How can Israel "seize the chance" with those who openly wish to murder them?

Peter Forsythe, Discovery Bay

[Note: they changed "kill" to "fight" in the penultimate paragraph. I don't know why they did that when the Hamas charter (which I quoted), is clear: all Muslims must kill Jews].

Sent from my iPad

Later: about time.... Kerry told Abbas that to gain full support from America, the Palestinian government needs to agree to eschew violence and recognise Israel...