Pressure Abbas to end Hamas ties, Netanyahu urges

Israeli soldiers search for three missing teenagers during a military operation Tuesday in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Israeli soldiers search for three missing teenagers during a military operation Tuesday in the West Bank city of Hebron.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's prime minister on Tuesday urged the international community to demand the Western-backed Palestinian president break off ties with the militant Hamas group over the apparent abduction of three Jewish teens in the West Bank.

Israel said it also wants to destroy the Hamas infrastructure in the West Bank and hopes to reclaim international support after the latest failure of U.S.-led peace efforts.

Israel has launched its most significant military ground operation in more than five years since the three Jewish seminary students disappeared Thursday at a West Bank hitchhiking junction.

Troops have blocked roads, searched homes and arrested more than 200 Palestinians, most of them Hamas activists.

There has been no sign of life from the missing teens or demands issued by any kidnappers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Hamas abducted the three teens, but has offered no proof, while the Islamic militant group has praised the deed but not claimed responsibility.

The teens' disappearance has created an unexpected diplomatic opening for Netanyahu, who only last week had found himself increasingly isolated in the international arena.

At the time, the United States and Europe were ignoring Netanyahu's appeals to shun the Palestinian unity government, a 17-member Cabinet of technocrats largely loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, but backed by Hamas.

The Israeli leader also had lost international good will after the latest failure of talks on Palestinian statehood, with Israel held partially responsible because of its ongoing settlement expansion on occupied lands.

Since Thursday, Israel has been able to crack down on Hamas in the West Bank -- in the context of the search for the missing teens -- without an international outcry or drawing allegations that it is provoking unnecessary confrontations with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu also has used the episode to try to discredit the Palestinian unity government.

The international community "has to condemn Hamas for its terrorist activities and ... must call on President Abbas to end his pact with Hamas," Netanyahu said in a meeting with Mideast envoy Tony Blair.

"Anybody who supports peace must tell the Palestinian Authority that they cannot build a government that is backed by the kidnappers of children and the murderers of innocents," he said.

Reconciliation with Hamas had provided Abbas with an alternate strategy after it became clear in April that there was not enough common ground between him and Netanyahu to reach a peace deal.

The unity government also was to give Abbas a foothold in the Gaza Strip, the territory Hamas had seized in 2007 and where it remains the de facto power.

Even before the abductions, reconciliation efforts were off to a bumpy start, with key issues unresolved.

Abbas' next move will depend on whether Hamas was involved in the kidnappings, as Israel claims, said Hana Amireh, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who attended a meeting led by Abbas over the weekend.

"If it is true that Hamas is behind this abduction, then this is a position we don't understand," he said. He did not say whether Abbas would dismantle the alliance.

Ali Barake, a Hamas representative in Lebanon, said Tuesday that "we do not have any information on the kidnapping."

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has strongly signaled that he is upset over what, in Israel's eyes, has been a tepid international response to the teens' disappearance. He has said he "expects" strong international condemnations, while complaining about the uproar over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

On Tuesday, five days after the crisis began, European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton condemned the abductions "in the strongest terms" and called for the release of the teens. The U.S. and other allies have also spoken out against the kidnappings, though they have stopped short of explicitly blaming Hamas.

Tamir Sheafer, an expert in political communication at the Hebrew University, said the international response was "definitely not as strong" as Israel had hoped.

He said Israel's leadership may have had unrealistic expectations, especially because it is not certain that Hamas was involved and because other crises, such as the heavy fighting in Iraq, are attracting most of the world's attention.

He also said Israel's own policies may be to blame. He said the Israeli government expects international support in times of crisis, but has rebuffed international demands when it comes to ending its longtime occupation of the West Bank and reaching peace with the Palestinians.

Ben Caspit, a liberal newspaper columnist in the Maariv daily, this week questioned the wisdom of continuing to settle the West Bank and allowing teenagers to hitchhike in the territory late at night.

"There are other people who think that to choose to live in the territories among millions of Palestinians who regard you as an occupier and who yearn for you to die an agonizing death is a form of irresponsibility," he wrote. "No, we are not blaming the boys, since they acted in keeping with the accepted norm. We were only wondering about that accepted norm."

Information for this article was contributed by Yousur Alhlou and Maeva Bambuck of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/18/2014

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