- 12 Mar 2017 11:43
#14784776
New Hamas Charter Would Name ‘Occupiers,’ Not ‘Jews,’ as the Enemy
New York Times. MARCH 9, 2017
We'll see how this goes. I doubt the Israeli Right will care even if Hamas does change its charter; they'll just come up with new excuses. Raise the bar higher, as usual.
New York Times. MARCH 9, 2017
CAIRO — Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that has governed the Gaza Strip for a decade, is drafting a new platform to present a more pragmatic and cooperative face to the world, Hamas officials confirmed on Thursday.
The document would represent a departure from the group’s contentious 1988 charter, in which it promised to “obliterate” Israel and characterized its struggle as specifically against Jews. The new document defines Hamas’s enemies as “occupiers.”
“It means that we don’t fight Jews because they are Jews,” said Taher el-Nounou, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. “Our struggle is only against those who occupied our lands.”
The new document would accept borders of the territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war as the basis for a Palestinian state. It would not recognize Israel, however, nor would it give up future claims to all of what Hamas considers Palestinian lands.
Mr. Nounou said the document, the result of four years of work, is not yet final and has not yet been approved by Hamas’s governing bodies. Nor are its contents wholly new, even though they seem now to carry both practical and symbolic weight, particularly in Hamas’s relations with Egypt.
Egypt controls the southern border of Gaza, limiting the movement of people and goods in and out of the increasingly impoverished territory.
Israel controls access from all other sides, including the Mediterranean, in what critics call a siege against the enclave of more than two million people.
We'll see how this goes. I doubt the Israeli Right will care even if Hamas does change its charter; they'll just come up with new excuses. Raise the bar higher, as usual.
Last edited by redcarpet on 13 Mar 2017 05:42, edited 1 time in total.
"Why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?" Lord Varys, Game of Thrones.