Hamas Rejects Recognition of Israel

22/04/2008

In a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations in Jerusalem yesterday, former US President Jimmy Carter said that he had gained the impression during meetings with Hamas leaders that the movement would "accept Israel's right to live in peace within the 1967 borders." In a Damascus press conference following Carter's statement, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal sought to clarify Hamas's position.

Meshaal said that Hamas would accept a 10 year Hudna - or truce, with Israel, in return for a state on the entire West Bank and Gaza, with east Jerusalem as its capital, and with the complete ‘right of return' for all refugees (the latter demand means the right of all Palestinian refugees from 1948 and their descendants to make their homes in Israel).

The Hamas leader made clear that this did not imply any recognition of Israel, which the movement continues to reject. Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said later that Hamas's recognition of any peace deal with Israel would be additionally dependent on the deal being approved in a referendum of all Palestinians, including refugees.

Abu Zuhri made clear that even in such an eventuality, Hamas's recognition of the deal would be ‘transitional.' The remarks by the Hamas leaders confirm the perception that Carter's meeting with Meshaal failed to produce anything substantively new in Hamas's position - though it may have served to weaken the boycott of the Hamas regime in Gaza.

Hamas spokesmen in the past have made similar statements regarding the possibility of a ten year ‘Hudna' with Israel. Israeli sources said that Jerusalem is seeing Meshaal's remarks to Carter as part of a larger public-relations campaign by Hamas to break the isolation imposed upon the Hamas enclave in Gaza, while avoiding substantive concessions, and continuing attacks on Israel. One positive result of the Meshaal-Carter meeting, however, was Hamas's agreement to release another letter from kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit to his family.