The latest announcement of a reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas is raising serious questions about the future of the peace process. Indeed, Hamas leaders close to the negotiations reiterated Hamas’ rejectionist, pro-terror stance just before the deal was announced.
The Hamas website interviewed the terror organization’s co-founder and senior leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, who “denied that Hamas has given up its resistance” and said “it is necessary to adopt a program of resistance in all its tools to expel Zionist occupation.” Resistance is a traditional code word for violence against Israeli civilians, or terrorism.
Earlier this month while Fatah-Hamas negotiations were taking place, newly appointed Hamas foreign spokesman Osama Hamdan slammed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace efforts and said Hamas policy is for a “stop to [peace] negotiations and a return to unite on the basis of the Palestinian resistance.”
Over the years Hamas has maintained its hardline stance calling for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic Palestinian state. The latest statements by Hamas leaders disprove the wishful speculation in one newspaper that “in 2009 and 2010, [Hamas] leaders indicated a willingness to settle for a Palestinian state within 1967 lines.” Ha’aretz also alleged that Hamas reconciling with Fatah “might force the organization to change direction.” Far from changing direction, the Hamas website says nothing about peace and continues to shower praise on the suicide bombers from one of the Park Hotel massacre, one of the most brutal Hamas attacks against civilians. On the eve of Passover, 2002, a Hamas suicide bomber murdered 30 Israelis and wounded 140 others.