Fatah has never recognized Israel’s right to exist and will never do so, according to Azzam al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee who is closely associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Ahmed, who is also head of the Fatah negotiating team with Hamas, said PA security forces in the West Bank were arresting Hamas supporters to protect them from being targeted by the IDF.
Ahmed’s remarks were made in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al- Youm.
Asked whether Fatah had spoken with Hamas about recognizing Israel, the senior Fatah official said, “Fatah has not recognized Israel. I challenge anyone who says that the case is otherwise, whether it’s Hamas or others. Neither Fatah nor Hamas is required to recognize Israel. Only governments and states extend recognition. It was the Palestinian government that recognized Israel, just as the Israeli government recognized us.”
Ahmed said the PLO had recognized Israel with the signing of the Oslo Accords.
“An organization recognized a state and a state recognized an organization,” he said.
“Now states should recognize each other when a Palestinian state is declared next September.”
In response to allegations that PA security forces have been cracking down on Hamas supporters in the West Bank, Ahmed said, “We in Fatah arrest Hamas members to protect them from Israel or from family disputes.”
The Fatah official praised Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal for delivering a “wonderful” speech during the signing ceremony for the Egyptian-brokered Fatah-Hamas reconciliation accord in Cairo on May 4.
“Mashaal used political language like President Abbas,” he added. “He talked about a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and said that he would give political efforts and negotiations a chance. Therefore, I consider this speech to be responsible.”
Ahmed said the new PA unity government, which would be established in accordance with the reconciliation pact, would not deal with peace talks with Israel.
“The PLO is in charge of the negotiations,” he emphasized.
“Hamas will join the PLO Executive Committee and become part of the PLO.”
He said he was happy to see Egyptians demonstrating outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo in the aftermath of the departure of the regime of Hosni Mubarak.
“When I see the demonstrations surrounding the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, I feel optimistic and that, as a Palestinian, I have received a new weapon and pressure force,” Ahmed said.
“This is a new change and we have seen how the Israelis are worried about these demonstrations.”
Insha’llah.
Ken yehi ratzohn.
Your lips to God’s ears.
Lord willin’ an’ the crick don’t rise.
etc.
Dweller,
I have spent most of my adult life utterly ignoring the Jewish left, their attitudes about Zionism and the historical rights of the Jewish nation, or much of anything else. I understand that gang is losing its electoral power in Israel, and I’m happy to see that the same thing has been happening to them here in the USA. Especially since the votes were counted after the midterm national election in November 2010. I have no doubt that some of the real leftists will leave Israel, and that will be good for the country. I hope the same happens to their counterparts here in the USA. Most of that crowd are spiritual vagabonds in any case. Unlike the real Jews, they have no homeland, and I think they know it. So the time will come when the rest of the world will understand them a lot better, and in doing so, just ignore them. Jewish leftists are no more representative of the great Jewish nation than an occasional flea is representative of a good and otherwise healthy hunting dog.
As for the future of Egypt, not a few of them will be starving. Because there is little gainful work there, and there is not enough food to go around for their street mobs. Increasingly conservative US Congresses will be decreasingly willing to grant the US presidency money to feed those swine, and I feel damned good when I think of that.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Once again,
There! Now let’s commence the “peace process” that Obama is so hopeful of. Let’s start, by not recognizing Obama. The President of the US is… who? Great process. Next point: Let’s have a freeze on Presidential BMs. Next, I would like the UN to recognize me as US President, with Portland, OR as my capital. What a joke, that anyone believes these clowns!
My thanks, Arnold, for the fleshing-out of your proposition.
It’s a helluva scenario.
The problem (unspoken) that it raises, of course, is the little matter of the “world community.”
In a shooting war, TBS, where things usually go quickly for Israel, circumstances lend themselves better to faits accomplis.
But the aftermath of these things can drag on endlessly — certainly long enough for the opposition to organize itself against Israel. Yes, yes, I know: ‘the world can go fork itself’ (that was a courtesy, not a typo).
It would be easier to take such a stance, I suppose, were it not for the fact that the likelihood is that the opposition would be headed up — or sparked anyway — by The Jewish Left.
And even the shooting part of a war is never — thus far — fully satisfactory for the existing G.O.I. of the day: because the world never LETS the Jewish state win in a manner that destroys the enemy. Think about it: In which of the conflicts that you cited — 1949, 1956, 1967, 1973 — did the IDF get to FINISH the job on the ground?
There’s a first time for everything, of course — but what would give rise to it, frankly, eludes me for the present.
Dweller, who said anything about asking permission of the Egyptians?
If Israel breaks the Egyptian army in the Sinai peninsula, which is precisely what happened in 1949, 1956, 1967 and 1973, then the Egyptians will have no means of stopping the Israeli army from occupying part of the west bank of the Suez Canal. That is specifically what Israel did in 1973, when they occupied the important city of Suez on the other side of the canal. The idea is that the Israelis would keep control of that place long enough to export the whole Gaza population into Egypt proper.
Then the negotiated terms of withdrawal would be that the Arabs keep the Arabs, while Israel keeps everything on the eastern side of the canal. They say they don’t like those terms? Then the Israeli army hangs around long enough to fuck them over enough to get them to change their mind.
The moral of the story is just this. Power essentially boils down to the ability of someone or an organized society to enforce its will over others. If you have the power, you can do what ever the hell you want in pursuit of your own interests, and all the losers can do is whine about it to the UNO.
In the long run, will the Gaza Arabs stay in Egypt if Israel shoves them across the Suez Canal? Sure. Who in the hell else would invite any of them to come to some other country? Besides. Egypt is a comparatively big country. Not a lot of American style opportunities there, but whatever they do have sure beats the Gaza shithole. Arabs are hateful, but they aren’t dumb. They will find such opportunities as they find wherever they land. After a generation or two, Palestine for them will be as forgotten as Babylon.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
And if Egypt doesn’t let them in?
(That’s not a far-fetched question, Arnold.)
If the Egyptians haven’t taken them in for the past several decades,
why would they do so now?
That’s exactly what I expected them to say, and I believe them. They all are at permanent war with the Jewish state and the Jewish nation. So both the Jewish state and nation would respond in kind, by making permanent war against them. The day will surely come when Israel will be compelled to destroy yet another Egyptian army in the depths of the Sinai peninsula. When they do that, I strongly suggest they annex the Sinai immediately, start rebuilding Jewish settlements and small cities such as the Yamit that our Yamit82 named himself after, then begin expelling the Gaza Arab population straight westward, across the Suez Canal, and into Egypt, where they will remain the rest of their hopefully short lives.
—-
I would like to say that I hope the suggestions that I make on these topics make sense to the rest of you. But even if they don’t make sense to you, I can live with that. Because I have the consciousness of the thoroughly tough-minded and thick-skinned Russian Jews whose community gave birth to my grandfather in one of the small villages of western Russia back in 1867. And that attitude reflects the sometimes cold and nasty streets of Chicago where I mostly was raised during the 1940s and early 1950s. I too have no sense of mercy for enemies, until they either quit the struggle or they are dead.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Any sane Jewish government would know what to do.
No!
Any sane Jewish government would have known this for the past 45 years and would have prevent the present situation from taking place.