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Palestinian Arabs

Hamas won't drop goal of destroying Israel


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
June 19, 2005

Hamas refuses to renounce its goal of one day destroying the Jewish state, but visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not feel that was reason enough to bar the terror group from participating in ?Palestinian? government.

Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa asked his visiting British counterpart if London would consider taking Hamas off its lits of known terrorist organizations if it had a strong showing in upcoming parliamentary elections.

Britain's Jack Straw responded that Hamas would remain on the terror list until it renounced violence and amended its charter, which calls for Israel's demise, Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported.

Hamas leaders reacted strongly in the Arab and international media and on the group's own website, rejecting Straw's assertion that they must abandon terrorism as a tactic in order to gain legitimacy.

?Hamas will never change itself or its rhetoric or its strategies. Its position is clear. This is occupied land which must be liberated,? Gaza-based Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told BBC Radio. ?We will not be [counted] among those who would give up so much as an inch of Palestine. We think all of Palestine belongs to us.?

?We will not drop our moral, religious and national constants just to have an audience with Straw and the likes of Straw,? Hamas's official website quoted Hassan Yussuf, a senior terror boss in Samaria, as saying.

Despite the negative effect an election victory by a belligerent Hamas could have on US-driven peace efforts, Rice on Saturday said the group's participation in government was an ?internal Palestinian matter? in which Washington would not interfere.

?The Palestinian people will conduct their elections as they see fit, in accordance with their laws,? Rice told reporters in Ramallah.

She did not indicate whether or not how the ?Palestinians? conduct their elections would influence US financial aid or Washington's view of the PA as an true peace partner.

The Bush Administration would, however, continue to view Hamas as a terrorist organization regardless of the election results, and would not conduct relations with any of its officials, Rice insisted.

A senior Hamas leader told Israel Radio Sunday that Washington had for months been holding low-level contacts with the terror group, Rice's statement notwithstanding.

Rice repeated US President George W. Bush's belief that the Palestinian Arabs would not vote for Hamas, because they all desired peace with Israel.

?I frankly don't think that it is the dream of mothers and fathers around the world that their children will be suicide bombers. I don't think it is the dream of people around the world that their children will have no future but one of violence,? she said.

Her statement ignored years of polls showing widespread ?Palestinian? support for homicide bomb attacks, wild celebrations following every successful mass slaughter of Israeli Jews, and the general lionization of homicide bombers in Palestinian Arab society.

As evidence for her position, Rice pointed to PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas's overwhelming election victory, claiming that he alone ran on a platform of peace.

?The man who said that he was for peace between Israel and the Palestinian people ... that is the platform that the Palestinian people chose in the presidential elections.?

Abbas's election campaign, however, was marked by anything but gestures of peaceful coexistence, as he publicly embraced known terrorist leaders, vowed to continue in Yasser Arafat's footsteps, and pledged to demographically destroy the Jewish state by flooding it with millions of so-called ?Palestinian refugees.?

Nor was he the lone candidate advocating negotiations with Israel.

Abbas's challengers in the election accused his regime of hindering their own campaigns, resulting in the landslide victory Washington was so fond of highlighting.

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