The comments by Khalil al-Hayya came amid a stalemate in months of cease-fire talks. But it's unlikely Israel would consider such a scenario.
A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders.
That will never happen while Netanyahu and his regime are in power. And the only time steps were taken in that direction, the Israeli Prime Minister got assassinated.
Assassinated by hard line Israelis who refuse to accept any type of two states solution. I have always wondered if we would have seen a true two state solution if Yitzhak Rabin hadn't been shot. I think it probably would have happened.
Basically one part of the Israeli independence war was a small civil war between left and right Zionists. The lefties won (being more numerous and frankly more popular, after WWII and all) and created a left-nationalist secular state with some meritocratic pretense, friendly with USSR but also with France and UK and USA.
Then they realized the need for pluralism and let the righties back into politics (because of need for their participation and their representation in the military and elsewhere). The righties frankly were more normal then, but that both made them an acceptable force in Israeli politics and still didn't remove the memory of that small civil war.
And then, after this assassination, a new force came in - the new generation of Irgun cosplayer righties, which wasn't normal in any sense of the word. By now these cosplayers have hijacked the social discourse in Israel to the level where they both demonize the remaining lefties and the remaining lefties barely make any difference.
The problem with cosplayers is that they need to be grotesquely evil. Otherwise they won't seem real enough. They also need to be grotesquely dumb. Otherwise their ideology's inconsistencies will break them apart. Same as with Turkish state being (somewhat) more vegetarian and intelligent than Azerbaijan.
I think Clinton may have been the last individual human that could have prevented catastrophe in Gaza. He should have capitilised on it and essentially refused to take no as an answer from Israel. Instead, he just kind of went "oh well", and here we are.
Considering they're the only ones offering to lay down arms, I'd say they're more likely to be peaceful than the IDF and Netanyahu, who are not making such an offer.
There's something in the world of intelligence called the "useful idiot". It's basically someone who drinks the Kool aid you're selling and unwittingly works for your agency/country/organization.
Don't overestimate the wisdom of the average Joe of the Western world.
Before people go off about them being evil, how much worse would it be if you tried? If it fails you're just back in the same place. If it works then you have peace.
Before people go off about them being evil, how much worse would it be if you tried? If it fails you’re just back in the same place.
Alright, while on a moral level this offer would be definitely the right thing to accept (ASSUMING complete good faith), it could be much, MUCH worse. Hamas has shown a willingness and ability to commit to large-scale attacks on Israel - considering the long, long history of antisemitic and genocidal rhetoric Hamas officials have engaged in, "Five years of not disrupting an enemy's plans and organization" is a five-year recipe for an even-better coordinated and funded attack.
hamas can't commit large-scale attacks on israel... Nobody can... Does anybody remember the iron fucking Dome that they have? Nobody is attacking Israel it's retarded to think that they are.
If you consider that Hamas only exists to fight against Israeli oppression over an ineffective PA, it makes sense that if the oppression ends, Hamas becomes irrelevant.
That's a chicken and egg problem, though, isn't it: Netanyahu's government wants Hamas because the conflict keeps Bibi out of prison, and Hamas wants to remain relevant. All the same, the Israeli and Palestinian people are the ones who suffer due to both regimes being in power, and Hamas doesn't shed its guilt just because Israel doesn't want a reasonable Palestinian government. Neither side wants to blink because they have multi-generational hatred for the other side, and that means popular support for further violence probably isn't going anywhere. You back down! No, you back down!
The result is that neither side is going to take real steps to deescalate, because both sides benefit from the conflict. That the Palestinians are suffering more, by orders of magnitude, doesn't make either side's position any less entrenched: Bibi wants to stay in power (and free), and Hamas wants to remain relevant and in power, and they're more justified now than ever. Both regimes need to be replaced.
It's important to note that for most of its existence, "fighting against Israeli oppression" explicitly meant Israel no longer existing. This is the first time I can remember them even implying that they would accept a two state solution.
After the founding of Israel, the Two-State Solutions were utilized to further annex the Palestinian Occupied Territories and enact military control over Palestinians while denying them human and civil rights. This is apartheid. Despite this, both Fatah and Hamas have accepted a Two-State Solution on the 1967 borders, with the two most important factors being the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees and an end to the permanent occupation.
The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.
They said they would accept 1967 borders in their 2017 charter, so it's been done before. It was also less antisemitic than their previous charter. I think they're trying to be less extreme and more flexible to get more recruitment maybe, but that's just my guess.
4 or 5 other times it was offered and every time it was shot down by the PA because either it wasn't from the river to the sea or all jews have to leave.
It was never about sharing, it was about keeping it all to themselves.
They've publicly held this position for nearly 20 years now. When they publicly adopted it and got elected as the new Palestinian Authority because of it, Israel immediately declared war and prevented them taking power.
Hamas has lied about peace and democracy in the past. They became the state of Palestine by winning an election in which they promised to stop attacks on civilians and be democratic, then refusing to hold an election for 2 decades.
Israel is a genocidal regime and needs to be stopped. But that doesn't make Hamas the good guys. A long-term solution can't include the current governments of either Israel or Palestine.
Hamas won an election in 2007, which no other country accepted the results of. Israel responded with a blockade. Not saying they're the good guys but it's not like it's a level playing field.
The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’
-Article 7 of Hamas’ founding charter
They were founded to kill Jews and push them out of Palestine. They’re not righteous freedom fighters.
“Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, destroy the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count them one by one, and kill them all, without leaving a single one.”
-prayer of Sheik Ahmad Bahr
They’re just as genocidal as Israel has been as of late, they just lack the same capability Israel does.
Hamas began twenty years into the occupation during the first Intifada, with the goal of ending the occupation. Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.
The 1988 Charter, which is certainly unreasonable in its fundamentalism with Sharia Law and is antisemitic, does not call for the extermination of all Jewish People. Hamas wants an end to Israel as an Apartheid State, not an extermination of all Israelis. Under Ahmed Yassin in the 1990's, truces were offered in exchange for Israeli to withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank to the 1967 borders. The 2017 Revised charter explicitly accepts a Two-State Solution of the 1967 Borders. Check Article 7 and 13 of the 1988 Charter to see yourself, compare it to Article 20 and 24-26 in the revised charter.
I think that person you're replying to's point is they won't be able to recruit at the same right without the huge group of angry, oppressed people that Israel keeps producing. They'll wither away out off non-relevance.
Hamas exists because it and Islamic Jihad are the militant wings of The Muslim Brotherhood, a group founded in WWII as unit of the Waffen-SS Afrikakorp.
Their goal was and always has been the death of every single Jew on the planet.
Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Ismailia in March 1928 along with six workers of the Suez Canal Company, as a Pan-Islamic, religious, political, and social movement.
They were opposed to colonialism, both in the form of British occupation and the threat of Zionism - the direct result of which we're seeing today.
al-Banna and other members of the Brotherhood voiced admiration for aspects of Nazi ideology, including its militarism and its centralization revolving around a charismatic leader but opposed others like its racial policies and ethnic nationalism.
At this point we can't say the same about Israel given it is entirely founded on ethnic nationalism.
HAMAS exists to exterminate Isreal and its inhabitants. Their offer is 'free Palestine, let us be the dominant political party, and let us form and official national army, then we chill for 5 years! Don't worry what we might do after that!'
Hamas isn't going to just die out if they win. Isreal would be suicidal if they agreed to the 'deal'.
Hamas ran in the 2006 election under a completely different name, in an effort to demonstrate that they can in fact separate themselves from their militant faction.
Remember, Israel also had its origins in armed struggle (against the British).
Edit: although this is probably Israeli projection, given that the armed factions did become the Israeli military. And we all know what they're up to.
Oke, and Israel exists to exterminate Palestinians and other arabs in their holy quest for greater Israel. Why is Israel continuing to settle the West Bank if Hamas is the big bad?
Gotta love the wording in this article "Hamas, which is committed to the destruction of Israel..."
It's because the "state" of Israel is inseparable from a military blockade that imposes a starvation regime and illegally settles lands in the West Bank in direct defiance of the UN. It's like saying I'm committed to the destruction of the US because I'm committed to ending criminal wars of aggression, unconstitutional mass surveillance, and a prison system with 2 million residents.
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."
Made up tripe should be treated as such, and people who believe in any kind of religious doctrine are delusion and deranged. We shouldn’t trust religious people with positions of authority or power, look at where this has gotten humanity.
I think Israeli leadership has already made the decision that all of that region is their land and they're not sharing it with anybody, or if they do, it'll be smaller reservations, similar to American Indian reservations in the US. They just want the Palestinians to eventually fade away. Violent groups like Hamas just help them more than anything because it gets Israelis riled up and gives their military an excuse to go in and carve out even more territory, so I'm sure they don't even care about this, they're like, "Why would we want you to lay down your arms?"
Jordan accused far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of violating the peace agreement between the two countries after he gave a speech in Paris at a podium featuring a map that included Jordan and the occupied West Bank as part of Israel and said the Palestinian people were "an invention."
The term “Greater Israel“ has been a contentious and debated concept related to the State of Israel and its territorial boundaries. This article explores the controversial idea of a “Greater Israel” and the various interpretations surrounding it. The concept of a “Greater Israel”, according to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, is a Jewish State stretching “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”
it’ll be smaller reservations, similar to American Indian reservations in the US.
The genocide of Native Americans happened when the world was less civilized, people as a whole were less aware and more disconnected. Allowing genocide in any era is unacceptable, it shouldn’t happen now.
The Palestinian people do not deserve to live under the rule of Hamas. In 19 years of living under Hamas, after all the money given to them by the US, France, the UK, Qatar, Iran, and even Israel, the only thing they built for the Palestinian people has been tunnels to commit terrorism from.
After Ireland gained independence they fought a civil war. Same in countless outer places. The Greeks fought one while fighting for independence. I fully expect the Palestinians to do the same.
The thing is: the Israelis don't get to decide any of this. That what independence from Israel means.
Israel is preventing this self determination by enforcing the weapons blockade on Gaza. All Israel has to do is nothing. Just stop actively preventing these people from being armed, and the human spirit will do the rest.
And just to be clear, I do NOT mean “CIA should go train some paramilitary to take down Hamas”.
Instead I mean “This is a gun store. Any adult may come here and trade money for a gun. That gun is now yours to do with as you see fit. You can hang it on your wall. You can use it to make sandwiches. You can shoot cans in an alley. Whatever. It’s your gun.”
Literally just let these people exercise their rights.
The Israeli imposed closure on Gaza began in 1991, temporarily, becoming permanent in 1993. The barrier began around Gaza around 1972. After the 'disengagement' in 2007, this turned into a full blockade; where Israel has had control over the airspace, borders, and sea. Under the guise of 'dual-use' Israel has restricted food, allocating a minimum supply leading to over half of Gaza being food insecure; construction materials, medical supplies, and other basic necessities have also been restricted. This has been a deliberate tactic of De-development.
Through 1993 Israel imposed a one-way system of tariffs and duties on the importation of goods through its borders; leaving Israel for Gaza, however, no tariffs or other regulations applied. Thus, for Israeli exports to Gaza, the Strip was treated as part of Israel; but for Gazan exports to Israel, the Strip was treated as a foreign entity subject to various “non-tariff barriers.” This placed Israel at a distinct advantage for trading and limited Gaza’s access to Israeli and foreign markets. Gazans had no recourse against such policies, being totally unable to protect themselves with tariffs or exchange rate controls. Thus, they had to pay more for highly protected Israeli products than they would if they had some control over their own economy. Such policies deprived the occupied territories of significant customs revenue, estimated at $118-$176 million in 1986. (Arguably, the economic terms of the Gaza—Jericho Agreement modify the situation only slightly.)
page 240
In a report released in May 2015, the World Bank revealed that as a result of Israel’s blockade and OPE, Gaza’s manufacturing sector shrank by as much as 60 percent over eight years while real per capita income is 31 percent lower than it was 20 years ago. The report also stated that the blockade alone is responsible for a 50 percent decrease in Gaza’s GDP since 2007. Furthermore, OPE (com- bined with the tunnel closure) exacerbated an already grave situation by reducing Gaza’s economy by an additional $460 million.
Page 402
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development - Third Edition by Sara M. Roy
The Palestinian people do not deserve to live under the rule of Hamas. In 19 years of living under Hamas, after all the money given to them by the US, France, the UK, Qatar, Iran, and even Israel, the only thing they built for the Palestinian people has been tunnels to commit terrorism
An independent Palestinian state would give the Palestinian people a chance to throw off the yoke of Hamas.
I don't believe that. Right wing fuckheads with weapons don't generally give up their power, especially after they had already taken away the right to vote.
A lot of dead Palestinians will be on your hands if you are wrong here. The price of being wrong is too high for me to agree with you, though I wish I could.
Probably, but they don't deserve to live under Israel either, and one of those is much more effective at killing them all.
Two state solution has to be the way to go, after that the people can have a Palestinian Spring if they want and overthrow Hamas, but whoever comes after is likely not going to be much better. They never are.
Yes, a two state solution is the only viable option. The problem is that Palestine never agrees to any of them. They won't this time either. As far as Hamas is concerned they'll only accept it if Tel Aviv is part of the independent Palestine. They regard the whole area as Palestine.
Ahh yes. Reject the deal, continue the starvation and murder of thousands and thousands of Palestinians by Israel. Because what would be more liberating than being murdered?
I see statements like "Free Gaza from Hamas" to justify the continued genocide. It is no suprise, given that the Nazis wrote "Arbeit macht frei". "Work makes free",
Twisting genocide into claiming it to be a liberation of the people they are genociding. Now i am not sure, if you belong to these bad faith people, but if you wonder, why you are getting backlash, it is because your statement seems to be advocating for that.
I agree…but one thing at a time. When Palestine is free, then they can get rid of Hamas. But right now, they’re on the same team against Israel…against literal genocide. A violently oppressive fundamentalist government is obviously something to shed when you have a state to expel them from. But they’re living under the worst case scenario right now. Hamas is their only defense at the moment against genocidal colonialist state. Fighting a battle on two fronts is a recipe for complete destruction.
Haha. Some fight. Millions of people living and dying in poverty and malnourishment so they could do a mass shooting of 1,300 people. They really showed em!
They have zero chance of fighting Israel and the only proper course for Hamas is an unconditional surrender and whatever peace terms Israel will grant them. They should be lucky to get the rights due prisoners of war. Usually you have to put yourself in a uniform to get those rights.
The first step toward true justice is removing the weapons blockade from Gaza. Allow the people to exercise their god-given right to be armed, and give them the chance to kill Hamas themselves. It’s a ruling junta, not a legitimate government. Palestinians haven’t consented to Hamas in decades, and Israel is keeping them disarmed (which obviously is only affecting the regular people, and not doing anything to keep Hamas from arming).
Let them arm themselves. Let them do as they will with their overlords.
Why would that go better in Palestine than in Afghanistan where the people didn't fight the terrorists even after decades of training, arming, and attempted nation-building?
Even that they are failing hard at. Despite all the unimaginable cruelty and choicest Western weaponry, all they have succeeded in is causing utter destruction and wholesale slaughter; they have neither decisively defeated Hamas or broken the resolve of a people they have blockaded more or less since 1967. What a bunch of losers.
Unfortunately, in a recent poll 80% of israeli said that israel should take into consideration the suffering of civilians. Only less than 2% said they believed the IDF is using too much fire power. I think there is a deeper issue with people's sentiments.
Because Netanyahu is not Israel and Hamas is not Palestine.
Why do I not name Hamas leader? Maybe cause it's not common knowledge since they hide in Egypt and Jordan, in their villas and don't come out except to bomb malls and steal humanitarian supplies meant for Gaza.
But seriously why are you defending terrorists? I'm not defending Netanyahu, I'm saying he needs to be gone.
Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
so let's see if Israel chooses security or expansion this time. Every other time they have chosen expansion and a Greater Israel, but hopefully they choose peace this time.
Great news, too bad israel has zero interest in a Palestinian state nor peace. Israel wants to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians and expand their Lebensraum That much has been fully proven over the last six months.
With Biden sending 26 Billion dollars to reimburse all the costs of this Genocide, without strings attached, it's clear that the path forward for israel is to now fully commit to their Gaza Holocaust.
The “genocide” would halt immediately if Hamas returned the hostages and surrendered themselves. Hamas has zero interest in that, and the Palestinians have zero interest in that.
Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza proposed by Hamas and rebuffed US pressure to move more quickly towards a mediated settlement to the war, saying there could be no solution to Israel’s security issues except “absolute victory” over the militant group.
Furthermore israel is currently also committing Genocide in the West Bank. Do you blame Hamas and hostages for that too?
The genocide has been on-going in slow motion for decades, so there's not chance in hell that Israel would stop, no matter what Hamas does. It's baked into the country's political system: It can't have a one-state solution and remain a Jewish ethno-state, and it can't have a two-state solution because the settlers are a vital part of the governing coalition. The only solution that Israeli politics can allow is to remove the people of Palestine. I'm sure they'd be happy with ethnic cleansing, but no other country can practically take in that many refugees, so the final solution is to simply kill them, which the IDF has shown no hesitation to do.
Oct 7th would've never happened if israel didn't treat the Palestinians like human animals. If your excuse they hide terrorists whats your excuse for how they treat Palestinians in the west Bank where hamas isn't a thing?
Al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas official who has represented the Palestinian militants in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage exchange, struck a sometimes defiant and other times conciliatory tone.
Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Al-Hayya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the rival Fatah faction, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority hopes to establish an independent state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.
Al-Hayya denied a permanent move of the group’s main political office is in the works and said Hamas wants to see Qatar continue in its capacity as mediator in the talks.
Al-Hayya also implicitly threatened that Hamas would attack Israeli or other forces who might be stationed around a floating pier the U.S. is scrambling to build along Gaza’s coastline to deliver aid by sea.
He denied that Hamas militants had targeted civilians during the attacks — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — and said the operation succeeded in its goal of bringing the Palestinian issue back to the world’s attention.
The original article contains 1,167 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Returning to the 1967 borders is a nonstarter. Israel has stolen a LOT of land since then so it would mean evicting entire Israeli settlements. Not that I disagree with doing that, but Israel would never agree to it. It would be like the US giving good land back to the native Americans; it's simply never going to happen.
Pre-1948 borders are the real solution for the Palestinians to have their own place. I support pre-1948 borders versus everything we are seeing today. People are behaving exactly like the people they feared and despised the most. It's weird, but so are they.
Pre-1948 as in going back to the borders of the one state Mandatory Palestine? Any solution that entails the destruction of the state of Israel is dead in the water for the international community.
What the official is proposing here (two states) would be about the only way to peace.
Two issues. The first is that they aren't going to get pre-1967 borders. The larger more important point though is that Hamas just admitted they aren't a legitimate government power and are actually terrorists instead. Own goal.
Official count is now 42,000 dead Palestinians, but that is because the ability to count the dead no longer exists. The number is probably closer to 100,000
Israeli doctors have come forward to detail how amputations are regular for Palestinian prisoners who have been zip tied for months now.
Any definition of terrorism that includes Hamas, also includes the Israeli government.
Edit: recognizing your username, now is when you'll call me antisemitic.
I get that this is the other side of the conflict, but this is a whataboutism. All of that which you wrote can be true without invalidating what the previous person wrote.
I suspect you are not asking in good faith, but I'm answering anyway: Methods and goals. Hamas methods are clear: Legitimate resistance doesn't deliberately and as a core policy murder, abduct and rape civilians. Hamas are no different from IS in this regard, which nobody calls resistance or freedom fighters.
Goals: Hamas actual and openly stated goal is the creation of a global Islamic caliphate and the murder and/or enslavement of all "nonbelievers", not the liberation of the Palestinian people.
The distinction comes from the ends they seek and the means they go about achieving those ends.
Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, destroy the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count them one by one, and kill them all, without leaving a single one.”
-prayer of Sheik Ahmad Bahr
I could easily get behind a platform that acknowledges that 7 million Jews now live in Israel and forcing them out (or even worse, killing them) would be a humanitarian catastrophe, but instead Hamas’ position is just as unyielding and genocidal as what Bibi’s admin has been waging upon the people of Gaza and the West Bank. They’re only now talking about laying down their arms because it benefits their attempts to paint themselves as the reasonable party in this conflict which I find to be a farce. More conflict and death benefits both Likud and Hamas.