RAMALLAH, West Bank, 22 April 2008 — Hamas would accept a Palestinian state on only part of the land it claims and would grant Israel a 10-year “hudna,” or truce, the Palestinian group’s leader said yesterday.
Khaled Meshaal’s comments were one of the clearest outlines Hamas has given for what it would do if Israel withdrew from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, which it seized in 1967. He suggested Hamas would accept Israel’s existence alongside a Palestinian state on the rest of the lands Israel has held since 1948.
“We agree to a (Palestinian) state on pre-67 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital with genuine sovereignty without settlements but without recognizing Israel,” Meshaal told reporters in Damascus.
“We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition,” he said. He said he made the offer to former US President Jimmy Carter during talks on Friday and Saturday in the Syrian capital.
Meshaal used the Arabic word “hudna,” meaning truce, which is more concrete than “tahdia” — a period of calm — which Hamas often uses to describe a simple cease-fire.
“This is Hamas’ clear vision,” Meshaal added. He said the future Palestinian state must have Jerusalem as its “genuine, sovereign” capital.
Meshaal, whom Carter seeks to draw into peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel, said his group would “respect Palestinian national will even if it was against our convictions.”
US Reaction
Washington, which refuses to deal with Hamas and has not backed Carter’s mission, said it saw no change in the group’s positions. “I think you can take it with a grain of salt. We have to look at the public comments and we also have to look at actions, and actions speak louder than words,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
In a speech in Jerusalem, Carter said, “Hamas will not undermine (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas’ efforts to negotiate an agreement (with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert) and Hamas will accept an agreement if the Palestinians support it in a free vote even though Hamas might disagree with some terms of the agreement.”
“Hamas would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor, next door, in peace,” he added.
However, Carter said Meshaal, whom he telephoned yesterday, turned down his appeal for a unilateral cease-fire with Israel to end violence threatening peace efforts.
“I did the best I could on that,” Carter said of his failure to persuade Hamas to halt rocket fire from the Gaza Strip it has controlled since it ousted Abbas’ Fatah movement. Carter said his understandings with Hamas called for a referendum to be preceded by reconciliation between the group and Abbas’ Fatah faction. Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah in June and Abbas has demanded the territory’s return.
‘Transitional’
Gaza-based Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Palestinian refugees living in exile must take part in a referendum — a condition that could dim the chances of approval since Israel opposes their mass return to what is now the Jewish state. Abu Zuhri also noted Hamas would see any future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as “transitional.”
Carter, however, said Hamas leaders whom he met “didn’t say anything about transitional.”
Olmert has refused to see the former US president during a regional visit that began on April 13.
“We believe that the problem is not that I met Hamas in Syria,” Carter said in his address to the Israel Council on Foreign Relations.
“The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with these people, who must be involved.”
Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but still controls its borders and has tightened its restrictions on the enclave since Hamas’ takeover. Carter said he proposed to Meshaal a rapid exchange of prisoners between Israel, which is holding more than 11,000 Palestinians, and Hamas, which along with other groups captured an Israeli soldier in 2006 on the Gaza border.
He said Meshaal told him that abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is in good condition and will be allowed to send another letter to his family in the near future.
— With input from agencies
