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Hamas politburo seeks end to war, Palestinian state: Report

The Cradle | December 20, 2023

Hamas political leaders are in talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA) about how to govern Gaza and the West Bank after the war with Israel ends, with the goal of establishing a Palestinian state, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 20 December.

“We don’t fight just because we want to fight. We are not partisans of a zero-sum game,” Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’ Doha-based political bureau, stated. “We want the war to end.”

The Hamas leader’s statement marks a change from 7 October, when the armed wing of the group led an assault on Israeli military bases and settlements in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed, both by Hamas and Israeli forces themselves due to the Hannibal Directive.

Hamas wished to break the 17-year siege on Gaza and put the Palestinian issue back on the table in the international arena.

During the attack, Hamas took over 200 Israeli soldiers and civilians captive hoping to exchange them for the freedom of thousands of Palestinians long held in Israeli prisons.

Now, after Israel has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas’s political wing is seeking an end to the conflict.

“We want to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem,” Badran said.

Badran also stated Hamas wishes to join the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which represents Palestinians at the United Nations and other international forums.

“It will be a national dialogue,” Badran said. “We have always said the PLO should contain any Palestinian faction.”

Badran and other Hamas officials say the talks have also included Mohammed Dahlan, a former Gaza security chief with close Emirati and Egyptian support, and former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

“I am no friend of Hamas,” Dahlan said. “But do you think anybody is going to be able to run to make peace without Hamas?”

The Hamas political leaders indicated they would be willing to join the PLO and support negotiations for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

But Badran said that Hamas had no plans to recognize Israel as long as the occupation continues. “The world has no right to ask when people are being killed,” he said. “It’s not logical to ask this question at this time.”

Badran denied rumors of a division between Hamas’ Gaza branch and its political leadership in Doha. “The leadership of Hamas, both inside Gaza and outside it, is in complete agreement on strategies and political positions across various issues,” he said.

Badran says Hamas is seeking a full-scale ceasefire and a full exchange of captives from both sides. “If there is a ceasefire, our stance is crystal clear: We want an exchange of all-for-all,” he said.

Israel has for years sought to foster divisions between Hamas and the PA, led by Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party, to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear he has for years approved Qatari payments to Hamas in Gaza, while ensuring the PA remained weak and unable to win the establishment of a Palestinian state through peaceful diplomatic means.

Israel has also sought to use the PA security forces to dismantle Palestinian resistance groups in the West Bank.

The US and Israel appear to disagree on a final solution for Gaza. The US wants a PA security force to crack down on Hamas after the war and to administer Gaza, said Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian peace negotiator. “They essentially want the PA’s role as Israel’s security subcontractor in the West Bank to be expanded into Gaza,” she said.

Buttu said the US is willing provide renewed financial and political support for the PA to maintain what New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman this summer called the “shared fiction” of a Palestinian state. “There is a longstanding and continuing false promise of Palestinian statehood,” Buttu added.

However, Israel has vowed it will not allow the PA to take control in Gaza. Numerous Israeli political and military figures have called for destroying Gaza, forcing its 2.3 million residents to flee to Egypt or Europe as refugees, and to rebuild the Jewish settlement in Gush Katif on the Gaza coast that was evacuated in 2005.

December 20, 2023 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Hamas, Israel, Palestine, Zionism