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Retired general warns of Hamas' vicotry

JERUSALEM, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- Former military Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon, Tuesday indicated the peace process is dead.

'Peace process' is "an empty phrase," he maintained. "There is no peace process.... Do we have a partner?" he asked at a symposium on Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections and the strategic threats facing Israel.

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Ya'alon was highly respected during his tenure, that most corresponded with the intifada. The government was criticized for not extending his appointment. He left the army shortly before the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Tuesday's comments, that included criticism of the disengagement, seemed to be the first time he expressed those views publicly.

Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who heads the hawkish Likud party promptly cited those comments in his election campaign speeches in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in an attempt to back his own criticism of the government's record and the "weakness" Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in combating Hamas' ascendancy.

Ya'alon, who spoke at the event organized by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, maintained that Hamas' victory was not just the result of a protest vote against the allegedly corrupt Fatah that lost those elections. "The extremist Islam sees this is another step towards beating Israel and the West," he said.

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He warned against falling into the trap "of anyone who smiles" there and maintained that a society that teaches its children to become suicide bombers is not built for peace. It will take a generation to change it, he added.

Channel 1 TV's Middle East specialist, Ehud Ya'ari, predicted that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who heads the Fatah party will, in effect, be the head of the opposition while Hamas "will continue to be an underground (movement)."

"The Palestinian Authority will have two arms and both will not function," Ya'ari said.

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