Justus For All

Khalid Mish’al is head of the political bureau of Hamas writes in the Guardian:

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 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.

The last paragraph there seems to be a possibility of a willingness to meet my minimum requirements, albiet on their terms. For the most part though, the statement is extremely defiant. At this stage it looks to me like Hamas is planning to give up on western aid, at least for a while. They probably want to see if countries will blink and support them anyway, and they certainly will try to see if they can get enough funding from other sources (possible, Arabs are swimming in oil money from high prices just now.)

My guess is though that they won’t be able to get enough, quick enough, to keep the PA running. If severe cutbacks are required in Palestine due to lack of funds, this could spark a hot civil war, particularly as those cut will be primarily Fatah supporters for the most part.

That is not a situation I particularly want to see.

Hamas must be aware of this danger. Whether they are willing to accept it, which is a distinct possibility, remains to be seen.

Israel should probably step up it’s unilateral withdrawal from the occupied territories though. I don’t think they want to be involved in what is probably coming.