The Hamas terrorist rulers of Gaza have announced their opposition to the Palestinian Authority bid for recognition at the United Nations as a new country and membership among the international body's ranks.
Senior members of Hamas told the Ma'an news agency this week that the reason is that the statehood bid by the Ramallah-based PA government, led by the rival Fatah faction, would constitute recognition of Israel as a state.
Such recognition is diametrically opposed to the Hamas platform, which refuses to recognize Israel as a legitimate entity, renounce terrorism or uphold prior agreements negotiated by other PA governments.
These three conditions were set by the Quartet of peacekeeping nations -- Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations -- as necessary for the resumption of funding to the region. Nevertheless, most of the Quartet members have managed to find loopholes through which to channel monies to the Gaza.
The Islamic Jihad terrorist organization has come out against the PA statehood bid at the United Nations as well.
Neither is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) umbrella organization that, despite this, claims to be the “sole representative” of “all” Palestinian people worldwide.
The much-touted “unity deal” between Fatah and Hamas promoted earlier this year has long since fallen apart, with other factions also in disagreement about the issue.
Oxford University scholar and former PLO representative Karma Nabulsi is also opposed to the plan, but for different reasons.
Nabulsi told Al Jazeera in an interview, “We have been informed by our officials that the initiative will advance our rights to self-determination. However, as it is currently constructed, this initiative does not actually advance or protect this collective right of the Palestinian people.”
It is the Ramallah-based PA, led by Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, whose term officially expired in January 2009, that is the driving force behind the U.N. initiative, although the PLO will make the formal proposal. The PLO is the official representative of the group to the United Nations.
There are also concerns being expressed by “ex-pats,” both within the PA territories and abroad, that the resolution in its current form “will replace the PLO as our representative at the U.N. with the Palestinian State,” Nabulsi said, “thereby disenfranchising the majority of our own people.