Abracadabrah

I create as I speak

Hamas Again

I've been meaning to link to this one all day:

The Guardian unsurprisingly, granted Khalid Mashaal editorial space to explain Hamas' mission to the world and its current statement of purpose.

Our message to the Muslim and Arab nations is this: you have a responsibility to stand by your Palestinian brothers and sisters whose sacrifices are made on behalf of all of you. Our people in Palestine should not need to wait for any aid from countries that attach humiliating conditions to every dollar or euro they pay despite their historical and moral responsibility for our plight. We expect you to step in and compensate the Palestinian people for any loss of aid and we demand you lift all restrictions on civil society institutions that wish to fundraise for the Palestinian cause.

Our message to the Palestinians is this: our people are not only those who live under siege in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but also the millions languishing in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria and the millions spread around the world unable to return home. We promise you that nothing in the world will deter us from pursuing our goal of liberation and return. We shall spare no effort to work with all factions and institutions in order to put our Palestinian house in order. Having won the parliamentary elections, our medium-term objective is to reform the PLO in order to revive its role as a true representative of all the Palestinian people, without exception or discrimination.

Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the book" who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us - our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banished our people.

Ah yes. All of us Jews are looking forward to the return to the imposition of dhimmitude.

As Joseph Braude points out, Khalid Masha'al is the person that Abbas called to congratulate officially on the Hamas victory. He is their spokesperson and their current policy formulator. The head of Hamas, for all intents and purposes.

Bush has stated, for the moment, that there will be no Palestinian state as long as Hamas refuses to change.

U.S. President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that a Palestinian state could not be established if a Hamas-led government refuses to renounce its desire to destroy Israel.

The American presindent also vowed that the United States will rise to Israel's defense if Iran launched an attack against it.

Bush said it was too early to tell what path Hamas, which won a shock victory in last week's parliamentary elections, would choose in dealing with Israel.

"The conditions for peace and the conditions for a settlement will be up to Hamas to make the right decisions," he said.

Bush was the first U.S. president specifically to endorse a state for Palestinians to live side by side in peace with Israel. Immediate prospects of that have dimmed with the triumph of Hamas in Palestinian parliamentary elections last week.

"I made the position of this government very clear," Bush said. "Hamas must renounce its desire to destroy Israel; it must recognize Israel's right to exist, and it must get rid of the armed wing of its party."

Well, considering what happened with Arafat, we know Bush has the cojones to shut Hamas out entirely if he so chooses. And if Condi doesn't talk him out of it for "pragmatic" reasons.

posted by Alcibiades @ 12:27 AM