Haniyeh 'unafraid' of Egypt crisis consequences

Gaza Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh said Friday that his government was carefully observing events in the Arab world, but added that the resistance and people of Gaza had little to fear. "We are a part of our community; we affect and are affected by it," Haniyeh said at a Friday prayer service. "We have reiterated that the Palestinian issue is an Arab, Islamic, and humanitarian issue. We observe what is happening out of concern for the unity and well-being of our community." He also said: "We believe good will emerge from this Arab Spring, these revolutions and this rebirth. We expect the Arab Spring cycle to continue until its objectives are attained, including our own cause." Haniyeh's political adviser Yussef Rizq on Thursday criticized on his Facebook page the ouster of Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president. "What happened in Egypt, his eviction and removal of power, is not part of a genuine democratic process, because they used military force and not the voice of the people through elections," Rizq said. Hamas has not officially reacted to Mursi's removal whose election it feted in June 2012 as he hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, to which the Islamist movement is affiliated. Under Morsi, as well as former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, Egypt promoted reconciliation efforts between President Mahmuod Abbas's Fatah movement which governs the West Bank and Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip.