The latest suckers to buy into the so-called “peace” plan known as “the prisoner’s document” is the Financial Times of London.
Hamas ponders sacrificing ideology for political gain
This week could turn out to be a vital one for the Palestinian Authority as the ruling Hamas movement ponders whether to sacrifice some of its ideology in exchange for safeguarding political gains it made in last January’s elections.Depending on the outcome of its deliberations, the PA could within weeks have a new national unity government with a platform of negotiating with Israel, or face a potentially divisive national referendum and worsening relations between Hamas and Fatah.
Representatives of the two movements met in Gaza yesterday in the latest talks aimed at reaching agreement on a set of proposals implicitly recognising Israel – the so-called prisoners’ document – that Mahmoud Abbas, the PA’s Fatah president, plans to put to a referendum on July 26.
Although Hamas failed to meet Mr Abbas’s mid-June deadline to endorse the document, Fatah officials said there was still time for the Islamists to avert a referendum by belatedly accepting its 18 points.
That, however, would require Hamas accepting proposals that embrace a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel, which it so far refuses to recognise.
The particularly egregious misrepresentations are in bold, including the headline of the piece.
Let me refer you to the third point of the document:
3- the right of the Palestinian people in resistance and clinging to the option of resistance with the various means and focusing the resistance in the occupied territories of 1967 alongside with the political action and negotiations and diplomatic action and continuation of popular and mass resistance against the occupation in its various forms and policies and making sure there is broad participation by all sectors and masses in the popular resistance.
You see the part marked in bold? That’s the part where the FT and all the other media “experts” stop reading. The first part is all they seem to get, and it seems to be that they think that “peace” includes committing terrorist acts in the West Bank. (Isn’t it interesting how the document doesn’t seem to mention Gaza as separate from the West Bank, even though Gaza is no longer occupied?)
If you’re not a blind reporter or politico or EUro, you can see that nowhere in this document is there a call for peace with Israel, implicitly or not. Nowhere in this document does it “imply” a two-state solution. What we have, it seems, is a new way to use the lies in this document the way they used the lies of Yasser Arafat to pretend that the palestinians wanted peace.
Then there’s point 9:
9- The need to double efforts to support and care for the refugees and defend their rights and work on holding a popular conference representing the refugees which should come up with commissions to follow up its duties and to stress on the right of return and to cling to this right and to call on the international community to implement Resolution 194 which stipulates the right of the refugees to return and to be compensated.
Resolution 194 includes several remarks on Israel. It calls for open access to all the holy sites in Jerusalem (and specifically mentioned Nazareth), something that did not happen from 1948 to 1967, when that part of Jerusalem was under Jordanian rule. It also says:
that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which under principles of international law or in equity should be made good by Governments or authorities responsible. Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of refugees and payment of compensation
The “right of return” of palestinian refugees no longer includes just the people who were displaced in 1948. It now includes their children, their children’s children, their great-grandchildren, and people who have married into their families. The number of refugees was about 700,000 in 1948. It is something around five million today. Never mind the fact that third-generations refugees should be known as “citizens of the states where they now live.” This is the way to demographically destroy the Jewish State, and it is also a non-starter. The EU knows this, the FT knows this, the media knows this—all negotiators know this. But they pretend that it isn’t really what the pals want, that they will probably settle for “token” resettlement and reparations. Take another look at the above, especially the part that says “to stress on the right of return and to cling to this right and to call on the international community to implement Resolution 194.
This is not an issue that will go away soon.
For a so-called “peace plan,” the word “peace” occurs only once in the document, and that is in reference to anti-Israel groups such as the ISM. Any other reference (“peaceful”) is to intra-palestinian relations.
The media does not seem to be able to read the introductory paragraph, either:
Based on a high sense of national and historical responsibility, and owing to the dangers facing our people and for the sake of reinforcing and consolidating the Palestinian internal front and protection of national unity and the unity of our people in the homeland and in the Diaspora, and in order to confront the Israeli scheme that aims to impose the Israeli solution which shatters the dream of our people and the right of our people in establishing their independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty; this scheme that the Israeli government intends to implement in the next phase as establishment of the erection and completion of the apartheid wall and the Judaization of the Jerusalem and the expansion of the Israeli settlements and the seizure of the Jordan Valley and the annexation of vast areas of the West Bank and blocking the path in front of our people to exercise their right in return.
It’s right there, in black and white, in the first paragraph. This is not a “peace” plan. It is a plan to continue exactly what they’re doing, and its only reason for being is to stop the factional fighting and band together behind yet another Big Lie: That Hamas is going to change its goal from the destruction of Israel to living in peace with Israel.
This. Will. Not. Happen.
Shame on the media for passing on the lies. At least Israel is pointing out the truth, and calling the document what it is: A bunch of bullshit that holds out no change in the palestinian position, and no change in their aims toward the destruction of Israel.