We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid (HAMAS)
by Khalid Mish’al

Palestinians voted for Hamas because of our refusal to give up their rights. But we are ready to make a just peace.
Khalid Mish’al
The Guardian

It is widely recognised that the Palestinians are among the most politicised and educated peoples in the world. When they went to the polls last Wednesday they were well aware of what was on offer and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a programme of reform. There were voices warning them, locally and internationally, not to vote for an organisation branded by the US and EU as terrorist because such a democratically exercised right would cost them the financial aid provided by foreign donors.

The day Hamas won the Palestinian democratic elections the world’s leading democracies failed the test of democracy. Rather than recognise the legitimacy of Hamas as a freely elected representative of the Palestinian people, seize the opportunity created by the result to support the development of good governance in Palestine and search for a means of ending the bloodshed, the US and EU threatened the Palestinian people with collective punishment for exercising their right to choose their parliamentary representatives.

We are being punished simply for resisting oppression and striving for justice. Those who threaten to impose sanctions on our people are the same powers that initiated our suffering and continue to support our oppressors almost unconditionally. We, the victims, are being penalised while our oppressors are pampered. The US and EU could have used the success of Hamas to open a new chapter in their relations with the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims and to understand better a movement that has so far been seen largely through the eyes of the Zionist occupiers of our land.

Our message to the US and EU governments is this: your attempt to force us to give up our principles or our struggle is in vain. Our people who gave thousands of martyrs, the millions of refugees who have waited for nearly 60 years to return home and our 9,000 political and war prisoners in Israeli jails have not made those sacrifices in order to settle for close to nothing.

Hamas has been elected mainly because of its immovable faith in the inevitability of victory; and Hamas is immune to bribery, intimidation and blackmail. While we are keen on having friendly relations with all nations we shall not seek friendships at the expense of our legitimate rights. We have seen how other nations, including the peoples of Vietnam and South Africa, persisted in their struggle until their quest for freedom and justice was accomplished. We are no different, our cause is no less worthy, our determination is no less profound and our patience is no less abundant.

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.

We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else’s sins or solve somebody else’s problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.

Khalid Mish’al is head of the political bureau of Hamas: hoood88@hotmail.com

This article can be found on The Guardian website: www.guardian.co.uk

Real Peace of Mind only Possible with Hamas
by Dr Azzam Tamimi

BBC Arabic radio asked a so-called expert about what he thought Hamas should be doing now that it is likely to be the next government in the Palestinian territories. He said Hamas has to change because the Palestinian people would want a government that recognizes Israel, that is willing to resume peace negotiations and that will in turn be acceptable to the United States. If this is truly what the Palestinian people wanted they might as well have settled for Fatah and not elected Hamas.

The people of Palestine gave Hamas their trust exactly because it is not what the expert was suggesting; it does not recognize the State of Israel, it is not willing to pursue a humiliating and illusive peace that does away with Palestinian rights and it is more interested in being accepted by the Palestinian people than by the USA or anybody else.

Furthermore the Palestinian people chose Hamas because of its clean and supportive hands; Hamas has proven itself to be a movement that carries the people on its back instead of riding on their backs. Hamas was given the vote because of the sacrifices it made in order for Palestinian rights to remain intact.

The fact that Hamas does not, and will not, recognize the legitimacy of the state of Israel or its right to exist, does not mean that Hamas is not capable of negotiating a peace deal that would end the bloodshed and give both sides a break from the pain and suffering. Hamas would negotiate a settlement based on the concept of hudnah (truce). As far as Hamas is concerned, and that is the position of the majority of the Palestinian people inside as well as outside Palestine, Israel exists on land stolen from the Palestinian. The creation of the state of Israel was a solution to a European problem and the Palestinians are under no obligation to be the scapegoats for Europe’s Whiteman’s failure to recognize the Jews as human beings worthy of respect and entitled to inalienable rights. Hamas, like all the Palestinians, refuse to be made to pay for the criminals who perpetrated the Holocaust. However, Israel for Hamas is a reality and that is why it is willing to deal with that reality in a manner that is compatible with its values and principles.

It would be a grave mistake on the part of the Israelis, but more so the American and the Europeans, to ignore the wish of the Palestinian people to be represented by the likes of Hamas. Instead of making ‘politically correct’ statements about Hamas having to do this or that the Europeans must lead the way in recognizing that Hamas today speaks for the Palestinians and therefore has to be communicated with.

Contrary to the claims of alarmists who see the election victory by Hamas a threat to peace, a new horizon for peace making is at our threshold. The entire peace making episodes of the past were based on assumptions absolutely unacceptable to the majority of the Palestinians and those who support their just cause. From Oslo to the Road Map it was always assumed that Israel was the victim that needed to live in peace and security and that the key to this was the end of Palestinian terrorism. The new peace episode that Hamas may indeed be willing to be part of should be based on the fact that the Palestinians are the victims and have been victims since Israel was created on their soil. It is not Palestinian terrorism that is the problem but Israeli aggression.

The late Sheikh Ahmad Yassin who was cut into pieces and his brain poured out of his skull when Israel shot him with an air to surface missile spelled it out for all to ponder a long time ago. He said we shall never recognize the theft of our land but we are willing to negotiate a ceasefire whose duration can be as a long as a generation’s life and let future generations on both sides decide where to go then. His conditions for the cease fire are in total agreement with international law and are as fair to both sides as anyone can get. Israel has to give back what it occupied in 1967 as it was then without any Jewish settlements or settlers and has to release all Palestinian prisoners. For that Hamas would be willing to halt its armed struggle and instead pursue peaceful means.

The IRA whose leaders sit in the House of Commons and who negotiated a deal with the British government continue to dream of uniting Northern Ireland with the rest of the Republic; it was never a condition for the peace talks that they should first abandon the dream.

Well, let the Palestinians dream of the end of Israel and let the Israelis dream of Eretz Yizrael from the Nile to the Euphrates but let’s negotiate an end to the violence. Hamas alone is capable of that because Hamas will not give up the right of the Palestinians to go back to the villages and towns from which the terrorists who stole their land to build their own state drove them away.

Azzam Tamimi
Visiting Professor
Nagoya University Japan
Azzamtamimi@gsid.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Answer To Prof Kessel (Aliran Article)
by Dr Mazeni Alwi