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Israeli OpEd's re: Hamas Leader Khaled Mashal's Statement re: Accepting 1967 Borders

Mashal said publicly for the first time that his movement would recognize the 1967 borders for a Palestinian state and that the arrangement would have to include the issues of Jerusalem and the refugees.

4/7/08

Yedioth Achronoth: "Khaled Mashal's Bombshell"

by Ephraim Halevy (op-ed)

   Only a weak echo was heard in the Israeli and international media after the interview given by Khaled Mashal to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam last week.  Mashal said publicly for the first time that his movement would recognize the 1967 borders for a Palestinian state and that the arrangement would have to include the issues of Jerusalem and the refugees.

   When asked whether this was a tactical or strategic position, he replied that this was a strategic position.  He associated his position with the position drawn up by the prisoners of the Palestinian movements in Israeli prisons, which was expressed in the prisoners' document from 2006.  Mashal said that all the Palestinian movements were partners to this document, including Abu Mazen's Fatah.

   For over a year, Mashal has been voicing his position to foreigners who visit his office in Damascus.  When speaking to them, he does not detail his positions on the issues of Jerusalem and the refugees, just as he did not do so in the interview.  In private conversations he says that Hamas will not make advance concessions in its fundamental positions on the core issues, and clarifies that at the end of the day, at the conclusion of any negotiation, the entire Palestinian nation will be called upon to decide and approve any arrangement.

   The Mashal declaration constitutes acquiescence to the repeated demand, which his interlocutors from the past year have put to him, to say publicly what he has spoken to them in private.  A lack of response to his statements does not conform to Israel's real interests at this time.

   Hamas, and Mashal as one of its spokesmen, does not want to participate directly in peace talks with Israel.  If it receives legitimacy as a recognized partner in the overall Palestinian equation, it will leave it to Abu Mazen to conduct the talks.  Israel is not being required, then, to sit down face to face with Hamas representatives.  This being the case, why are Israel and the international community refusing to permit Hamas's inclusion in the equation?

   Whoever examines the publicly-stated positions of Fatah and Hamas must admit that there is no difference between them.  Both adhere to the 1967 borders.  Both include the issues of Jerusalem and the refugees in the negotiations.  Neither have backed down in any way, outwardly, from extreme positions on these two core issues.  Whoever reads Abu Mazen's speech at the Damascus summit will find sharp and harsh criticism of Israel and will not find even the slightest public hint of a change in the Palestinians' basic positions.

   Indeed, Mashal is unwilling to declare in advance that he recognizes Israel's right to exist, as required by the international community.  At the same time, Abu Mazen insists on not declaring in advance his recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.  Is there a real difference between these two unacceptable positions?

   Hamas has taken very severe blows from Israel in the past months, and it yearns for a cease-fire.  A party that wishes to cease the fire, attests to the fact that it is at a disadvantage.  This is the right moment to try to achieve a reliable temporary arrangement.

   Hamas has proven that it still holds substantial destructive power, to the point of posing a real danger to the peace talks being conducted between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.  PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in a public interview to the Israeli media that he is in favor of including Hamas in the diplomatic process, otherwise it is doubtful whether the negotiations will be able to reach a successful conclusion.

   If Israel does not seriously consider a change of policy in light of the voices coming from the leaders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and in Damascus, under conditions that are optimal for Israel at the present time, we may find ourselves quickly falling down a slippery slope.

   Anyone who needed proof of the fragile state of the Israel-Hamas balance received it last week, in an incident where there was a hair's breadth between injury to the former GSS director, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, to the actual outcome.  The fate of this balance is a matter of chance, more now than ever.

   In the past two weeks, Ayman al-Zawahiri has called twice to attack Jews and Israel, "in Israel and everywhere else."  In the eyes of al-Qaida, the members of Hamas are perceived as heretics due to their stated desire to participate, even indirectly, in processes of any understandings or agreements with Israel.  Mashal's declaration diametrically contradicts al-Qaida's approach, and provides Israel with an opportunity, perhaps an historic one, to leverage it for the better.

   Are our eyes too blind to see?  Are our ears too deaf to hear?


Ma'ariv: "What Do We Want?"

by Kobi Niv (op-ed)

    Last week, Hamas Political Bureau Director Khaled Mashal said that his organization accepts the "prisoners' document," which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.  Ostensibly, this is an important and exciting announcement, on the basis of which it is certainly possible to negotiate with a full contingent of the Palestinians, ranging from Fatah to Hamas.  His statement, like the prisoners' document, included a mention of the Palestinian insistence on the right of return-a slogan regarding which, in at least in some of the talks held in recent years between Israeli figures such as Yossi Beilin and Ami Ayalon with senior Palestinians, ways have been found to translate the principled right into practical terms, under conditions that would not threaten Israel's existence.  One newspaper and one web site even made this report into a main headline.  What about our leaders?  None of them, neither minister nor activist, uttered even a peep in response.

   Why is that?  Here are the usual reasons:

   A. "Who is Khaled Mashal anyway?"  Well, it depends what he is saying.  If he says negative, hard line things like "we will burn Tel Aviv," then he is a very important man, and even receives headlines here such as "Hamas leader threatens."  And when a terror attack takes place, hidden threads immediately lead to the "head of the snake in Damascus," who supposedly operates all the terrorists from there like marionettes.  But when Mashal says positive things, like the words quoted above, he immediately becomes completely unimportant, lacking all influence, a person whose words are meaningless and does not represent even a fly.  But if Mashal is so marginal in the Palestinian system, why in fact did we bother to try to assassinate him with a secret injection in the ear?

   B. "Until Hamas recognizes the existence of the State of Israel and halts terror-we won't talk to it."  This sounds principled and charming, but it is completely backwards.  The exact opposite is true: Recognition of Israel and halting terror are not the means that will bring us to the end, which is talking; it is talking that is the means that will bring us to the end, which is recognition of Israel and a cessation of terror.  Besides, we should take note of one stinging fact-Israel has never evacuated even a single settlement within the framework of talk or negotiations with the Palestinians.  Every settlement we have evacuated, including all the settlements in the Gaza Strip, were evacuated solely due to the pressure of terror applied to us by the Palestinians.  In other words, at least from the Palestinians' perspective, there is nothing to talk about with Israel, because talking with us achieves nothing.  Israel understands only force, only terror.

   C. "He doesn't mean what he says, and it is only a ploy on the way to Israel's destruction."  That is possible.  It may be that Mashal and all the Palestinians are only deceiving us, and will make a mock peace with us for 20 years.  Then, when everything here is fine and good, and the two neighboring countries are so prosperous that it will be impossible to tell the difference between Nablus and Safed, suddenly they will rise and ruin their own lives, just because some Mashal, twenty years earlier, did not mean peace.  But you would be surprised-integration, the more complete it is, creates more peace, whereas separation, the more absolute it is, creates more war.  Besides, set the Palestinians aside, let's ask ourselves what we actually want.  Are we willing, for the sake of the realest peace in the world, to fully withdraw to the 1967 borders, with no tricks and no maneuvers of bypass roads and settlement blocs and Jerusalem expansion laws?  On this matter, we are all one front, a uniform rejectionist front, declaring to the entire world-no.