Hamas tries to portray itself as meeting Obama conditions

Hamas says it's ready to open talks with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, but it's not clear the feeling is mutual. Obama must deal with the Palestinian terror group, a Hamas leader demanded in an interview broadcast Saturday.

"The American administration, if they want to deal with the region, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have no other option than deal with Hamas because we are a real force on the ground, effective," Mashaal told Sky News from Damascus, Syria.

The exiled leader, who Israel tried and failed to execute in the late 1990s, said that Hamas is ready for dialogue with the Obama administration "on the basis that the American administration respects our rights and our options."

Perhaps Mashaal knows something we don't know, but at least for now the President-elect is not letting on that when it comes to Hamas that he supports a dramatic change toward Hamas. Indeed, Denis McDonough, senior foreign policy adviser to Obama, restated US policy that Hamas had to change its policies before it could engage in any talks.

"President-elect Obama said throughout the campaign that he will only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist and agrees to abide by past agreements," McDonough said.

Hamas has controlled Gaza since seizing power in June 2007 from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. The Bush administration boycotted the Islamic terror group, as has most of the international community because Hamas refuses to renounce violence or recognize Israel.

On Friday, Hamas Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar said he hoped Obama's victory would open a new page in relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world. But he said he did not expect the U.S. to talk to Hamas right away.

The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said Saturday that his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, but his clarification appeared less than satisfactory.

Clare Short, who served in the cabinet of ex-British PM Tony Blair, asked Haniyeh to repeat his offer. He said the Hamas government had agreed to accept a Palestinian state that followed the 1967 borders and to offer Israel a long-term hudna, or truce, if Israel recognized the Palestinians' national rights.

This has been Hamas' traditional position, and the terror group has never concealed its intention to use any ceasefire to strengthen itself for what it see as a war to the bitter end with the Jews, including an unwavering stance not to compromise on Palestinian demand to return to areas in pre-1967 Israel, swamping the country with descendants of refugees.

In response to a question about the international community's impression that there are already two Palestinian states, Haniyeh said: "We don't have a state, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Gaza is under siege and the West Bank is occupied. What we have in the Gaza Strip is not a state, but rather a regime of an elected government. A Palestinian state will not be created at this time except in the territories of 1967." Hamas and most other Palestinians believe that a state in the "territories of 1967" (before the Six Day War in that year) would be used as a staging ground for the destruction of what remained of Israel.

Haniyeh responded to a question about Hamas' relations with Iran and responded to the claims of "our Zionist friends" that Hamas, like Iran, seeks to destroy the State of Israel and throw the Jews into the sea.

"Our ties with Iran are like those with other Muslim states. Does a besieged people that is waiting breathlessly for a ship to come from the sea want to throw the Jews into the ocean?" he asked rhetorically, but not so convincingly. "Our conflict is not with the Jews, our problem is with the occupation," Haniyeh said.

The protest boat Dignity anchored at Gaza port Saturday morning, carrying 11 European Parliamentary representatives, who sought to express their opposition to the Gaza blockade and see for themselves its effect on Gaza's population. The 11 were among a few dozen members of European parliaments who about two weeks ago were refused entrance to Gaza at the Rafah crossing by Egyptian officials.

This was the Dignity's third voyage from Cyprus to Gaza in 10 days, and the third time in three months the Free Gaza Movement organized a protest sail and visit to Gaza.

He explained to them why Hamas boycotted the talks with Fatah that were scheduled to begin on Sunday in Cairo. "We had 17 political detainees [from Fatah, held without trial and without being charged] being held in harsh conditions - I'm not proud of that," Haniyeh said. "They were released. We expected a similar measure from our brothers in Ramallah, but unfortunately the situation only worsened ahead of the meeting in Cairo." According to Haniyeh, about 400 Hamas activists are being held in Palestinian Authority jails in the West Bank, and all requests to release them have fallen on deaf ears.

Haniyeh said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' statements to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit prove that the United States won't allow the two Palestinian factions to reach a reconciliation. He said the PA must shake off the "American fist" that he claimed was gripping it.

Tags: Fatah, Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, Meshaal, Zahar, diplomacy, security

Add a Comment

You need to be a member of Israel Insider to add comments!

Join Israel Insider

Comment by JMKC on November 15, 2008 at 2:13am: Obama has the talent of being able to speak out of both sides of his mouth.
George Soros name alongside anyone else's never bodes well, and George Soros was all over the Obama campaign, even funding prepaid untraceable credit cards for people (?) to be able to donate online.
I might feel better about the whole thing if I had become a conspiracy theorist decades ago,,,
this stuff really creeps me out.

Comment by usaywat on November 12, 2008 at 10:09pm: Obama sends man linked with terror group and George Soros to deal with Egypt/Syria
Warner Todd Huston
November 11, 2008
News services in Israel are on fire with talk that Barack Obama has just sent a supporter of the terror group Hamas as his envoy to Syria and Egypt to relay news of his policies to come. Last September Israel's suspicions were heated up about "former" Obama advisor Robert Malley being sent to Syria with a George Soros funded group. It was then claimed by Egyptian sources that Malley was still working as an advance man for Obama which angered Israelis because six months earlier Malley announced that he had held "regular meetings" with Hamas. At that time, Malley's comment caused the Obama camp to hurriedly distance the candidate from any connection with Malley. But, with the election over, it seems that Obama's claims that Malley didn't really work for him are not quite true. It also seems that we already have the very first example of Obama sticking his finger in the eye of our allies in Israel. Naturally, the U.S. press is not reporting this news.
In September of this year, Robert Malley caused consternation among people that stand against the terror group Hamas when he went to Syria to work for a group called the International Crisis Group — a George Soros funded NGO also chaired by other doyens the far left. Some thought that he was secretly there as an Obama advance man, but there is no real proof that he was there in that capacity at that time so the story died down.
As mentioned, back in May Malley reported that he held "regular meetings" with the Palestinian terror group Hamas causing Israelis quite a lot of heartburn. To appease Israel's supporters in the U.S. at that time, the Obama camp threw Malley under the bus. (Bold mine)
Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr Obama, responded swiftly: "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."
Yet, despite claims that Malley would not have a "role in the future," now word has emerged that Malley was just sent to Egypt and Syria this week as an envoy for Barack Obama causing at least one harshly worded report in Israel to claim that Obama "lied" about Malley earlier this year.
Report: Obama lied about firing anti-Israel advisor
Robert Malley, a top Middle East advisor that US President-elect Barack Obama promised months ago would play no role in his administration due to ties to Hamas, has reportedly been sent out on the next administration's first diplomatic mission.
This is disheartening news for any supporter of Israel and bad news about the direction that Obama could be taking with his foreign policy in the Mid East. If Obama is willing to so early upset the Israelis by sending a man to Egypt known to have direct ties to terror groups, what does that say about his ideas on policy in that turbulent region? And why would an American president hire such people for his foreign policy team, anyway?
This should also make one wonder if Obama was telling the truth back in May? And, if Malley has been hauled up from under the bus, does this make all the others Obama rolled over on his way to the White House suddenly back in the clear? Are we to understand with this sudden rehabilitation of Malley as a trusted Obama representative that just any of the people that Barack claimed he wasn't really working with during the campaign are back in his good graces?

Comment by Robert Bernier on November 10, 2008 at 10:12am: Hamas in its own words.
In January 2006 the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas won almost two-thirds of the seats in the Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections. The Hamas charter calls for the extermination of Jews as well as the destruction of Israel as an Islamic necessity. Its goal remains the destruction of Israel, and that the preferred means it chooses is continued “resistance” and Jihad, the PA euphemisms for terrorism. A statement made by Ahmad Yassin, founder and former head of Hamas, who was killed by Israel was made in response to Israel’s plan to evacuate Israeli towns in Gaza Strip in 2005. The message was that the Palestinians had found the key to destroying Israel. Since terror was forcing Israel to leave its towns in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians would now only have to keep up the terror in Israel’s other cities and Israel would run from those as well. The Hamas charter at : http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2007/12/hamas-covenant-1988_25.html