Habib: London Conference Reveals Double Standards With Hamas

An international conference in London to find ways to prevent the smuggling of weapons to Gaza began on Friday, a month after a similar conference was held in Copenhagen. Participating in the closed-session style conference in addition to Britain are Canada, France, Denmark, Germany, the U.S.A., and Norway.

London press sources say that the issues being discussed in the conference are similar to those that were addressed in the Copenhagen conference that was held on February 2, 2009.

Among these issues are the establishment of mechanisms for the exchange of information between Europe, the U.S.A., and Canada for monitoring and tracking the smuggling of weapons to Gaza in coordination with regional countries, especially Egypt which they consider a passage-route for these weapons via the Rafah crossing.

Commenting on the London conference, MB Vice-Chair Mohamed Habib said, "this conference and others are episodes in the Western series of pressure on Hamas and the Palestinian people to give into submission and give up the option of resistance."

Habib further expressed his disappointment with the obvious Western bias in dealing with the Hamas regime and in their denial to acknowledge the results of the legislative elections despite their participation in monitoring them adding that "this has revealed the ugly face of double standards in spite of the suffering of the Palestinian people and their deprivation from their land, and in turn, their deprivation from weapons."

"While they give the Israeli land usurpers the full opportunity to equip themselves with all the tools and mechanisms from the rifle to the nuclear arsenal, Palestinians are being deprived from everything in Gaza," Habib continued.

The Copenhagen conference last month had discussed ways to prevent the passage of weapons to Gaza via the sea and concluded with no announcements of clear decisions on this matter.