Mustafa Barghouti, the Palestinian minister of information in the National Unity Government suspended Friday night by President Mahmoud Abbas after a stunning rout of Fatah forces by Hamas in Gaza, says he turned down the offer, this weekend, of a portfolio in the just-formed Emergency Government in Palestine.

From the perspective of Likud chief Benjamin Netanyahu, the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip proves that the right-wing stance was correct all along. Israel didn‘t have to quit Gaza in 2005 or withdraw from Lebanon in 2000, Netanyahu says.