Two days after Hamas’ foreign minister said, once again, that Hamas will never recognize Israel, there is still no news story in any major Western media outlet that acknowledges this latest pronouncement. However, there are pieces like this drek in Time Magazine that claim the opposite.
According to Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Hamas as an organization will not recognize Israel, and would seek only an “interim solution” to the current impasse, but government spokesmen as well as some Palestinian officials have suggested that almost all options could be on the table — including, perhaps, recognition in some roundabout form — if in return Israel would withdraw to the 1967 borders and close all settlements in the West Bank. “Hamas has made significant strides to evolve, which have so far not been internationally acknowledged,” says Nicolas Pelham, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
Sure, and pigs are going to fly, too. But the article ends on a hopeful note:
At a rally in Jabalya refugee camp on Friday, Haniya addressed a crowd of thousands, making no policy statements but instead trying to gird them for future struggles. “We are facing an unholy alliance led by the American Administration to cut aid to the poor and oppressed Palestinian people,” he said. “We will not give in, and attempts to isolate the government will fail.” After he finished speaking, a throng surrounded his car. He drove slowly away, supported, exalted, but with his thoughts and plans, much like Hamas’, still a mystery.
No, his thoughts are not a mystery. He has been quite plain in his thoughts on Israel: An Islamic state, from the river to the sea. He last said it on April 7, which, hm, let me count… oh yeah, that was nine days ago.
Apparently, though, when the leaders of Hamas say, “We will never recognize Israel,” the world needs an interpreter to understand what they are saying.
In like vein, the Guardian, you’ll be shocked to learn, has this analysis of causes:
“At the root of Gaza’s problems is Israel’s determination to force Hamas to recognise the state of Israel and renounce violence. Israel has been joined in its efforts by Britain, the EU and the US. Hamas militants have been on a ceasefire for 16 months but they are determined to withhold recognition of Israel at least until it withdraws from occupied Palestinian territory.”
If the damned Jews would stop being so bloody-minded everything would work itself out. When the last Jew clears out of the Palestinian waqf, Hamas will recognize that Israel used to exist. (They will call it “the Zionist entity”, but why quibble over words?)