Khaled Mashaal: This is our best offer, take it or leave it
This is of course music to the ears of the political mandarins in the various EU state foreign ministries. They’ll end up putting a whole lot of spin on the meaning of his words, though a promised ten year cease-fire from attacking Israel is just that, a hiatus, which will be used as a time for rebuilding their strength for the next round of hostilities.
Israel in fact doesn’t need nor desire a ceasefire, all that is needed is for the Arabs to put down their weapons for good, enter into direct negotiations with the Jewish state, and end the conflict once and for all. The only ones who need for ceasefires, are the ones who want to resume hostilities at a later date. And THIS is the Hamas’ best offer. Yet mark my words, the political analysts and foreign policy think tanks’ will be rushing to interpret this latest ‘offer’ by Hamas as a watershed event, something that is worth exploring and building on.
Those same people can be counted on in the upcoming months, to caste Israel as the ones not interested in peace, for their refusal to take Hamas’ most generous offer seriously. Of course they themselves would never even consider it if they were advocating from an Israeli position, but that’s the way these moronic analysts think. KGS
Hamas has stopped launching rockets at Israel and is looking to establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, the Islamist group’s political leader Khaled Mashaal told The New York Times in an interview published Monday. He went on to say that Hamas supported “a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees,” specifying that by a “long-term” agreement he meant 10 years.
Mashaal, who was re-elected as the leader of the movement’s political bureau for the fourth time earlier this week, called the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel “a method, not a goal,” and said that the cessation of such aggression was “part of an evaluation from the movement which serves the Palestinians’ interest.”
The Times also quoted the Damascus-based leader as saying that Hamas sought to agree to a truce with Israel, as well as an agreement to swap captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit with multiple Palestinian prisoners.
He did not, however, stray far from the group’s previous statements, reiterating, “There is only one enemy in the region, and that is Israel,” and opining that pushing Hamas to recognize Israel was merely “a pretext by the United States and Israel to escape dealing with the real issue and to throw the ball into the Arab and Palestinian court.”
UPDATE: Barry Rubin takes on the same subject in his usual succinct style:
Hamas Says `Kill`; Media Perceives Moderation
Mashal isn’t trying all that hard to conceal his views, ideology, and strategy. In part, that’s because he thinks the people he’s trying to fool are really stupid. In part, it’s because he will have to defend anything he says to his colleagues. In part, too, it is because he is a real true believer (called fanatics in a “less enlightened” age).
[…]
You may not believe the Arab state and Palestinian Authority promises but at least they are pretending to make them.
In contrast, Hamas openly says: if you give us lots of concessions all we will do in exchange is to give you ten years to live before starting up Phase 2 and wiping you out. Of course, we will use that time to build up our forces to ensure your total extinction. And of course the concessions you would have made make it far more likely that your country will be destroyed and its people put to the sword.
And that’s about the same thing? How could anyone write such a paragraph about Hamas and ever expect to be taken seriously again?Of course, there’s another way to look at it: If what Hamas is offering is about the same thing as the Palestinian Authority and the Arab initiative, then clearly the last two are equally tricks to get rid of Israel altogether.
Finally, in this interview Mashal made this statement supposedly intended to profess moderation: “I promise the American administration and the international community that we will be part of the solution, period.”Unfortunately, the solution he was referring to is Hamas’s final solution for the Jews and Israel.
