Last week Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based head of Hamas's Political Bureau, gave an interview to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam. The choice of venue is significant, since Al-Ayyam is a pro-Fatah paper, linked to the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah, and Meshaal is the presumed leader of Hamas, whose breakaway government rules Gaza since last June.
The interview should therefore be read as an act of public diplomacy. In the West, though, it has hardly been read at all. The Israeli daily Ha'aretz ran a short item, which was translated into English, and the Italian news agency AKI published a version of the interview.
Ignoring Meshaal is a mistake, especially given developments I'll describe in a moment. So I asked a Palestinian journalist to translate some key excerpts of the Al-Ayyam interview. They appear here. Pay particular attention to the last paragraph. First, though a bit of context. (For more background, see my new American Prospect column.)
In the interview, Meshaal reiterates his commitment to the Palestinian unity agreements of 2006, which were the basis for the short-lived unity Hamas-Fatah unity government last year. On the face of it, he's suggesting willingness to return to a unity framework. Under the 2006 agreements, Hamas agreed to let Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas negotiate with Israel on a final-status agreement based on the June 4, 1967 lines, Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem, and the right of return. Meshaal is saying he still stands by that, though he's not willing to recognize Israel formally. In the final paragraph of the excerpt below, the interviewer is essentially asking Meshaal if he isn't still committed to the Hamas Charter of 1988, which leaves no room for Israel. Meshaal's answer is: In my heart, of course I believe all of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians. But practically speaking, our political position is a de facto two-state solution.
Let me be clear: Meshaal is still stating a considerably more hardline position than that of Fatah. This isn't an offer on which any Israeli leader could just sign. Meshaal's stated conditions for two states falls far short of the Clinton parameters or the Geneva accord. On the other hand, pay attention: The leader of Hamas is saying that the Charter has no practical relevance. He really wishes Israel would vanish, but that's not his political program. He'd rather take a couple pills against nausea, and accept reality.
I also stress that I'm not ignoring Hamas's long record of terror. My mental map of Jerusalem is marked with the places where Hamas blew people up, including the places where I've heard the blast and the screaming and seen the blood. These are nasty people.
Yet given the current stalemate, the question is whether it is in American, Israel, and moderate Palestinian interests to continue with the policy of isolating Hamas, or to prefer a Palestinian unity government in which Hamas would have a stake in compromises.
In answering that question, take into account:
Whatever happened to "divide and conquer?" Why does the Bush and company talent for dividing people end at the water's edge? Why do they force all our enemies together and make them so much harder to defeat?
GW trying to deter.....
after all if there's peace in the region--the US won't be able to keep their chokehold on everyone there.
And Arab have a lot of history of sych restrain and logical thinking. Lets see:
Lebanon - no they had a pretty nasty civil war there
Iraq - no Sunnies and Shiites have been killing each other there way before we got involved
Jordan - almost except when PLO tried to overthrow the king, so jordanians killed a few thousands
should I go on...
Nicole, you have been preaching the same anti-Israel hate on this board for a while. If you proposal hapens and Arabs kill off Jews you will be busy explaining that world misunderstood and Arabs only wanted to test the guns and they accidently went off...
And you want to make this into a fight between good and evil and I refuse to look at it that way. I will always be grateful that Israel exists because during the Holocaust nobody in the world was willing to help so Jews had to find a place to go and I support that decision. Many Jews fought for the right to have a country where they wouldn't be persecuted but I also think the tragedy of the Holocaust does not give Jews a right to victimize other people and not feel empathy for them.
Also I don't agree with those examples you gave because none of those Arab countries are democracies - of course they kill each other. I'm suggesting that if Arabs lived in a real democracy they would value life as much as we do but you seem to belive they're inherently bloodthirsty killers who will never
But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. The God that I worship has a way of saying, “Don’t play with me.” He has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, “Don’t play with me, Israel. Don’t play with me, Babylon. Be still and know that I’m God. And if you don’t stop your reckless course, I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power.” And that can happen to America.
Every now and then I go back and read Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And when I come and look at America, I say to myself, the parallels are frightening. And we have perverted the drum major instinct.
But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness. The thing I like about it is by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.
MLK
But if it is hate and ethnic hubris then nothing changes, weapons get stockpiled, and tensions continue to boil until eventually --inevitably, an explosion no one wants happens. This can happen here and this can happen in the Middle East.
Is it love or is it hate? The devil is not in the details but in this basic question. …and it cannot be love of self and hate of another it must be love-to-love or hate-to-hate.
Also he refers to right of return. I.e. one of the condition of such hunda would be Israel's aceptance of 4mm Palestinians... Does not seems like a big progress from his prior positions..
NB: 2 days ago Palestinins killed 2 Israilis civilian who were working in fuel depot .That depot suplies fuel... to Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas lauded the operation..
Once gain Palestinians killed 2 civilians whose jobs was to help Palestinians...
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/417089E7-6D8F-480F-9B03-16E9B4A057C4.htm
How many Palestinian civilians have been killed by the Israel military? It seems that as far as you are concerned only the lives of Israelis are worthy, while the lives of Palestinians are not worthy. What interests humane people is how to find a solution to stop the killing on both sides. As long as you continue to promote the "good and saintly Israelis" vs. "the evil Palestinians" and the Palestinians promote the reverse, I just don't see how this conflict can be resolved.
Now I am against the Israeli military attacking Gaza and killing civilians, but I have noticed that they never target civilians while Hamas almost always targets civilians...(children with molotov cocktails or human shields are not civilians...)
The palestinians teach their children to dream of being jew killers as our society teaches our children to want to be rock or movie stars...
so you have to admit that there is a bit of a difference there...
or am I completely wrong?
What amazed me in this case is that those 2 civilians were working to bring fuel to Palestinians. Palestinians have been complaining about shortage of fuel. Then they go and kill civilians who help that fuel to get to Gaza and blow up a crossing via which fuel enters Gaza. Assuming that Palestinians are logical, the only explanation I can come up is that Hamas deliberetly trying to worsen the fuel crisis...
While Hamas is most assuredly guilty of carrying out terrorists attacks against Israel, only a fool or a pro-Israel zealot would deny that Israel is a terrorist state. This is blatantly obvious given its 60 years of military expansionism, illegal and brutal occupations, repeated ethnic cleansings, massive slaughter of Palestinians and Lebanese, the imprisonment of over 10,000 Palestinians (thousands without charge, including hundreds of women and children), illegal collective punishment, blockades, assassinations, embargoes and daily violations of the UN Charter, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention (all of which came about in large measure as a result of the Jewish holocaust during WWII). Needless to say, Washington's decades of subservience to the pro-Israel lobby and its financial/military "no strings attached" aid to Israel courtesy of US taxpayers (now over $15 million each and every day) constitute American complicity in the well documented litany of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinians and other Arab peoples.
Thank you for recounting all the horrors, but what is your solution? The complete extermination of Palestinians, Syrians, and Iranians? Or would you rather have a perpetual war (of course with unquestioning support of Israel by the United sates) between Israel and the Arabs? I suppose since Israel has the monopoly of nuclear weapons in the region they could go ahead and wipe out all these evil enemies. Because any one who attempts to promote genuine peace you deem to be stupid! The only smart people are those who clamor for war. But realistically are Israelis better served by a perpetual war with the Arabs? It seems clear to me that after 60 years, Israel has failed to beat the Arabs into complete submission. So Israel is really left with two options: entering into genuine peace with Palestinians that recognizes their National aspirations, or complete extermination of the Arabs and their muslim supporters such as Iran. So dear Smart mommamia526, which option would you choose?
40 years, The Economist calls it the New Silicone Valley-lots of new infrastructure,lots of research and development and the don't forget the weapons industry. Many donations from wealthy Americans.
They are able to achieve so much with the help of the government of the USA. We give Israel 7 million dollars a day,
and will continue that amount for the next 10 years. Except unlike any other foreign country, Israel gets their $$$$ in one lump sum, they set the condition to receive the $$ in just one annual payment.
The right to exist --such rhetoric, it is worn out
Hamas doesn't exist to the Israeli Gov't ...... Hamas gets "heard" through acts of terror and rocket launches to the only town the rocket will reach. And then Israel returns the fire tenfold, they have the military equipment.
Like Iraq, this occupation will never end militarily, conditions must exist and human beings must be recognized as people, not classified by religion. Generations of people living in
strife. It's time for moderate Jews to demand representation, time for moderate Jews to prevail and try something other than right wing domination tactics that have obviously not worked.
Why set a precondition to Negotiation unless you are interested in not having those negotiations. Is that because Israel is strong and Hamas is weak? Let us say tomorrow Hamas, for political reasons, says that Israel has a right to exist, does that mean that they would never renege on that. Why not negotiate the establishment of an Independent Palestinian state, based on the pre 1967 borders, in exchange for Palestinian recognition of the sate of israel. I know many native Americans who do not recognize the right of the United States to exist, but honestly, does that mean any thing in reality? By throwing out this pre-condition al you are doing find an excuse as to why Israel should not negotiate with a democratic elected group representing the Palestinian people.
As for democraticly elected group - well Nazi part was democraticly elected by German people...