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"In a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh wrote that his group will support any step that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state within the '67 borders, Israel Radio quoted Palestinian media reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, Haniyeh stressed that Hamas wouldn't thwart efforts to establish a free and independent Palestinian state, which will have Jerusalem as its capital.
The Hamas leader reportedly went on to say the US and Israel were responsible for the current stagnation of Middle East peace talks, because they rejected a two-state solution based on ceding the entire '67 territories and allowing Palestinian refugees to return to Israel or receive compensation."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1253198174648&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFullHamas is not al-Qaidahttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/21/hamas-al-qaidaThe two are radically different – the position of the democratically elected Hamas is about land, not religion, creed or race<
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"The New Statesman's
interview with Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, was one of the most significant interviews with the leading figure in a movement that has been demonised and excommunicated by most of the western world and its media. The fact that Meshal realises that his words will be scrutinised by his allies and supporters as closely as his adversaries confirms that he speaks of the official position of Hamas on a number of crucial issues which the pro-Israel propaganda apparatus has managed to manipulate for so long.
Arguably, the most important assertion made in the interview, conducted by Ken Livingstone, is that in which Meshal clearly stated that the Palestinian struggle was anything but a conflict between Muslims and the Jewish people. He insisted that the Palestinians were fighting against the occupier who had dispossessed them of their homes and lands, regardless of religion, creed or race. He also went on to confirm that the concept of coexistence was largely present in the Palestinian psyche, and that genocide, as suffered by Jews in Europe (and which he described as "horrible and criminal") was alien not only to the Palestinians but to the inhabitants of the region as a whole.
His statement that Jews, Muslims and Christians had for centuries lived side by side – implying there was nothing intrinsic to prevent this happening again in the future – is crucial. This mirrors
Ismail Haniyeh's response, after he became prime minister in 2006, to the question of whether the Palestinians wished to throw the Jews into the sea: "Does a besieged people that is waiting breathlessly for a ship to come from the sea want to throw the Jews into the ocean? Our conflict is not with the Jews, our problem is with the occupation."
This unequivocal stand is one that ought to be welcomed by Jewish communities around the world. Rather than the fear-mongering tactics of the Israeli media machine, particularly during the Gaza attack earlier this year, warning Jews of imminent attacks against them and their facilities, Meshal was sending a clear message of assurance that the Palestinian struggle was political rather than religious and about real political grievances and not against the Jewish people per se. This comes after Meshal had himself
publicly rejected any attack committed anywhere in the world which exploited the premise of the Palestinian struggle."