Hamas putting the cart before the horse

Hamas’s hammer, Khaled Meshaal, says that the West will have no choice but to accept its unity government and to lift its siege of the terrorist “government” of the Palestinians:

“This is an opportunity for the international community to correct its mistake. Some of its members did not respect the will of the Palestinian electorate. They now have to learn and respect Palestinian consensus,” Meshaal said.

“The atmosphere with Fatah is positive. We want to tell the world we form one Palestinian line and the siege has to be lifted. The international community has no option but to respect Palestinian will,” Meshaal said after a late night meeting with Ahmad Qurei, a high level Fatah member.

Well, there are a couple problems here that I can see. First off, the internal drama among the Palestinians continues: there is no unity government between Hamas and Fatah. Meetings for today were called off, in fact.

Then there’s the sticky issue of Hamas refusing to recognize Israel, which Reuters, true to form, lies through its teeth about, putting the onus on Israel for Hamas’s failure to recognize its legitimacy and existence:

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and end its armed struggle, saying such moves would be futile so long as Israel shows no sign of relinquishing all occupied land and keeps expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

By its charter, Hamas is sworn to the destruction of Israel.