Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas’ government prime minister, said on Wednesday that the terrorist group would respect any peace deal reached between Israel and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, provided it is approved in a global Palestinian referendum, the Associated Press reported.
Speaking in a rare news conference for foreign media, Haniyeh said that Hamas seeks dialogue with the West and wants to be “part of the solution, not the problem.” At the same time he criticized the peace negotiations, saying they seem pointless. “Israel wants a full surrender from us and we are not going to do this,” he emphasized.
Despite his criticism of the peace negotiations with Israel, Haniyeh said his government remains committed to the referendum idea. The idea was part of a short-lived unity deal reached in 2007 between the rival PA factions Fatah and Hamas.
The two factions have been at odds with one another ever since Hamas violently took over the Gaza Strip in June of 2007. Several attempts at reconciliation have taken place, none of them successful. The last meeting between members of both factions took place in early November in Syria. This round of discussions failed when no agreement was reached on the subject of “security forces.” Fatah refuses to allow Hamas to have its own security power in the PA territories, something that would likely have to occur should the groups reconcile.
Abbas, who heads Fatah and rules in Ramallah, recently accused Iran of preventing PA unity, saying that Iran is dictating Hamas' agenda and has decided against reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
Haniyeh said in reference to the old referendum idea that Hamas does not “have a problem with establishing a viable Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the land that was occupied in 1967,” referring to the areas occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967 (which Jordan succeeded in conquering during the 1948 War of Independence, though Jordan's occupation was not recognized as legal or official by any world body).
While Hamas’ supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, has made similar remarks as Haniyeh in an attempt to reach out to the West, Hamas has never revoked its founding charter which calls for Israel’s destruction.
Israel was skeptical about the sincerity of Haniyeh’s remarks on Wednesday. “If Hamas really wanted to reach out for peace, it could have done so very simply by accepting the three conditions of the Quartet (of Mideast mediators), which are to recognize Israel, recognize past Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and abandon terror,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.
During the press conference, Haniyeh also denied Israeli allegations that al-Qaeda has operatives in Gaza and that Gaza militants planned to carry out attacks in Egypt.
“There is no such thing as al-Qaeda in Gaza,” Haniyeh said and added that “the Palestinian resistance does not work outside the borders of Palestine.” He said that such claims are part of a disinformation campaign meant to prepare the ground for future attacks on Gaza, and mentioned he had sent a letter to Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, assuring him that Hamas militants have no plans to attack targets in Arab or Islamic countries.