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The Reverse Thread - A.K.A. "Teh Palindrome"

I told him that each loaf would be around fifty pounds, measuring ten feet long, four feet wide, and six feet tall (wider at the top).
 
Abbas Pushes for Unity Government With Hamas

By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: September 10, 2006

JERUSALEM, Sept. 10 —President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority traveled today from his West Bank headquarters to the Gaza Strip, where he hopes to establish a national unity government with Hamas that could win broad international acceptance.

Before leaving the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mr. Abbas met Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who endorsed the idea of a Palestinian unity government and said it could receive widespread support as long as it meets conditions set by Western countries and the United Nations.

“I believe that such a government, based on the Quartet requirements, does offer the possibility of re-engagement by the international community,” Mr. Blair said after the meeting.

The Quartet, consisting of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, insists that the Palestinian government renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

However, the Palestinian government, now led by the radical Islamic group Hamas, has not met any of these conditions, and Western countries have cut off assistance to the Palestinian Authority, leaving the Palestinians in desperate financial condition.

Broke and isolated by the West, the Hamas government agreed in principle in June to form a unity government with Mr. Abbas’s Fatah movement, which favors negotiations with Israel. But Hamas and Fatah have not made progress on how to divide up government posts, nor have they bridged fundamental political differences.

Mr. Abbas’s trip to Gaza, the Hamas stronghold, is the latest attempt to work out a deal.

“We are serious about putting together a national unity government to put an end to the siege imposed on us,” Mr. Abbas said.

He also declared his readiness to hold talks with Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who made a similar statement on Saturday, when he hosted Mr. Blair in Jerusalem.

“I stand fully ready to meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert without prior conditions,” Mr. Abbas added.

However, Israel and the Palestinians have stressed that they want a meeting that will produce concrete results.

Israel is demanding that the Palestinians release Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants on June 25. The Palestinians, in turn, are seeking an exchange that would involve the release of a large number Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The Israelis and the Palestinians have not held full-scale peace talks in more than five years, and even members of Mr. Abbas’s Fatah movement are wary of holding talks for the sake of talks.

Mr. Abbas “has many photographs of himself with Olmert. He doesn’t need any more,” said Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, a Fatah spokesman in Gaza. “We are looking for a fruitful meeting.”

Mr. Olmert also has been reluctant to meet Mr. Abbas. Israel has said that it regards the Palestinian Authority as a single entity, and that Hamas, not Mr. Abbas, holds most of the power.

However, Mr. Olmert and a number of his cabinet ministers say that now is a good moment to engage Mr. Abbas. They have not offered an explicit explanation on change in the Israeli position, but it appears Israel would like to exploit the rift between Mr. Abbas, who favors dialogue with Israel, and Hamas, which maintains its hard-line positions of refusing to deal with the Jewish state.

Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas government, described the meeting between Mr. Abbas and Mr. Blair as “very encouraging.” But Mr. Hamad said that the government still considered it a mistake for the Europeans to halt contacts with the Palestinian Authority after Hamas came to power. “We hope their will be a change in European Union policy,” he said.

Israel, the United States and the European Union all regard Hamas as a terrorist group.
 
I got offered a job to cater the seventh annual, "Mob Boss Reacharound Giveaway Banquet". I figured they would like some bread.
 
I told him that each loaf would be around fifty pounds, measuring ten feet long, four feet wide, and six feet tall (wider at the top).
 
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