Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? They don’t come much older than President Shimon Peres, but yesterday, while speaking to the Austrian chancellor he finally admitted (or figured out) something that most of us have known for a very long time – Hamas wants to destroy Israel!

(Do you think he drank too much coffee? Or have they given him those ‘smart pills’?)

He almost admitted that pulling out of Gaza was a mistake! I wonder how long it will take him to see that Oslo isn’t doing too well at the moment either (how does that Nobel prize look on the mantlepiece now?)

Everything he has been done and tried to do for the past several decades (at least) turns out to have been a mistake. (I hope I never have to come to a realisation like that!) All this time he thought the Palestinians were our friends!

Perhaps he is in the process of doing teshuva (it is Elul, even for the president). Perhaps he has finally heard the screams of the kids in Sderot!

Let us hope (and pray) that with this realisation about Palestinian – Israel relations he will also actually direct the government to do something, and to make Israel a safer and even better place to live.

Hamas wants to destroy Israel, says Peres

“We had a rough day in Sderot. Seven rockets fell and almost killed our children. It’s an intolerable situation and there is one address for it – Hamas. There is a limit to how much Israel is willing to tolerate,” President Shimon Peres told Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer on Monday.

In thier meeting in Jerusalem, the president told the chancellor, “Israel left Gaza completely. There is not one Israeli citizen in its territory. Today I ask myself why? Why is Hamas shooting? What is its goal?

“There is only one answer. Hamas is a religious-fanatic organization that does not want a Palestinian state for its people, but wants to impose the dangerous radical religious hegemony that is taking over the entire Middle East and gives a green light to kill innocent people in its name.”

Peres continued to condemn Hamas’ actions which he said harmed both the Palestinian and Israeli people. “Hamas has one goal,” he said, “to destroy the State of Israel. This is a danger to the entire free world. There is a limit to how much Israel is willing to tolerate.”