Israel says it will break ties with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas if the quartet conditions - the renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel, and adhering to past peace agreements - are not met.

If the new Palestinian unity government is based solely on the agreement reached in Mecca and does not include the three conditions of the Quartet, Israel will cut off its ties with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, officials in Jerusalem warned Sunday morning.

In an interview with Army Radio Sunday morning, Opposition head MK Binyamin Netanyahu agreed with this position.

"Hamas has not moved in the direction of Abbas," Netanyahu said. "Rather, he has moved in the direction of Hamas. If he gives legitimacy to Hamas, then that's bad; if we give legitimacy to Hamas, then that's even worse."

Senior Israeli officials said Abbas's agreement to and appointment of a new government that does not accept the three international benchmarks - recognizing Israel, accepting previous agreements, and renouncing terrorism - made him a partner with Hamas, and called into question future Israeli cooperation with him.

The official said Israel was carefully assessing the situation and waiting to see what the new Palestinian Authority government's guidelines would be before making a final decision. "Maybe we will all be surprised," the official said skeptically.

The agreement, which took the form of a letter written by Abbas, calls upon Hamas to "respect international resolutions and the agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization."

Sources in Jerusalem said that "respecting" agreements is not the same as "accepting them," and that the letter made no mention of recognizing Israel and renouncing terrorism.

The Palestinians cry crocodile tears every time they lose a battle with the Israelis. Yet fighting is their policy. Some people are very hard to educate.

The officials said Israel was "stating very clearly that terror is continuing on a daily basis - the firing of rockets and the smuggling of arms into the Gaza Strip - and has never stopped. And as far as we can tell from the public declarations that were made by Abbas and Hamas after the agreement, the new government does not meet the three international benchmarks."

The only surprise in the offing is when the next war will start. I'm betting on weeks if not days. In fact it may have already started. In the same way that Stupidfada II started. With a riot about the Temple Mount. The Israelis are doing some reconstruction work about 200 feet from the Temple Mount area to fix a collapsed ramp.

....Palestinians have expressed fears that the excavations under way actually are attempts to tunnel under the compound.

Israeli officials reject that accusation and say they are not digging under the compound, or even close to it. They insist that the replacement of a ramp would not harm the holy site about 200 feet away.

"We have nothing to hide, and yet extremist elements with a hateful agenda have cynically provoked violence by deliberately spreading mistruths about what we're doing," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

You know how it is. Hope springs eternal. This time it will be different. For sure.

Cross Posted at Power and Control