Hamas agreement 'will recognise Israel'
Hamas is close to agreeing to major concessions over a document that implies recognition of Israel, a senior Hamas official suggested today.
Following the latest session of reconciliation talks between Hamas and the rival Fatah movement, participants said the sides were not far apart on the issue of calling for a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
The wording of such an agreement would imply a recognition of Israel next to the three areas listed in the document.
The talks were also set to call for resistance to Israeli occupation of the West Bank from only within those borders, instead of attacks inside Israel.
Such an agreement would represent significant changes in the Hamas Islamic ideology. Hamas does not accept a Jewish state in the Middle East and has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel, killing hundreds. However, it was unlikely to satisfy either the West or Israel.
Government spokesman Ghazi Hamad of Hamas said: “I think in a couple of days we will reach a compromise, because we think that the differences are not significant.”
Prominent Palestinian prisoners held by Israel put together the 18-point document. Moderate President Mahmoud Abbas accepted it and set a referendum on the plan for July 26 if Hamas does not accept it by then.
Hamas opposes the referendum, charging it is designed to bypass the Hamas-led government, in office less than three months.
Yesterday, another militant movement, Islamic Jihad, said it was rejecting the prisoners’ document because it implied recognition of Israel.
After meeting Abbas yesterday, the EU’s top foreign policy official, Benita Ferrero-Waldner said Hamas acceptance of the so-called prisoners’ document would not be enough to halt the sanctions.
She said Hamas must fully comply with three stated conditions – recognising Israel, renouncing violence and accepting previous peace accords.
Israel has called negotiations over the document an internal Palestinian matter, but key points are unacceptable to Israel.
These include the demand to withdraw from all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, return of millions of refugees and their descendants to Israel and resistance, which Israel interprets as violence, in the West Bank.
Western sanctions against Hamas – which Israel, the US and EU list as a terror group – have bankrupted the Palestinian government, holding up salary payments for public workers.
Partial pay-day finally arrived today for thousands of workers in Gaza, as the Hamas-led government dipped into suitcases its leaders carried across the border and handed out three crisp 100 US dollar notes to some of their desperate employees.
But only postal banks dared handle the money because commercial banks fear anti-terrorism sanctions.
Last week Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, hauled €16m in cash across the Egyptian border into Gaza, and another official followed with £1.1m (€1.6m). The money distributed to workers yesterday came from those suitcases.
The Palestinian Authority is the largest employer in the West Bank and Gaza with 165,000 workers, and their salaries add up to about €100m a month. The last three pay-days have been missed, and another is due in less than two weeks.
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