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.
After reading his biography I fully believe that he could have created Middle East peace he could have been so fucking great he was a good man
The crazy thing is he wasn’t some flower in the hair, love and peace is all we need kind of guy. he was part of the IDF and fought in several of the early conflicts. Then once he entered politics he was the defense minister for 10 years. He had the makings of any hardliner. But he was a guy that believed that peace was the only way forward for a conflict. A soldier who knew war and knew peace was the better choice.
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.
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.
They also justified the terrorist attack on the 7th of october, welcomed the large attack on Israel, are not “ashamed to say that Israel has no place in their land and has to be removed” and “will do it again and again”.
So yeah they may lay their weapons down, but they never remain peaceful.
Source: https://news.yahoo.com/hamas-member-says-repeat-attacks-065643206.html?guccounter=1
Hamas does not break ceasefire deals. Israel does that.
Israeli troops fire at Palestinians attempting to return to northern Gaza during cease-fire
What is it with your constant attempts at whitewashing Hamas? There were four alerts in Israel due to rockets launched from Gaza on that same day.
There was an effective ceasefire before 7th October (apart from the random rockets fired Israel’s way) that was broken pretty badly. Making a ceasefire deal with terrorists that attacked you and took hostages and will never stop attacking you makes no sense.
Lmao, fuck this guy. He doesn’t give two fucks about Palestine or its people.
The Hamas leadership are a bunch of wealthy old men who live abroad in comfort.
The fact that a large number of people in the West are denying this and portraying Hamas as freedom fighters is very worrying.
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.
I just love how many people from “the world of intelligence” knowing all their stuff you can meet on the Web. That’s an /s .
Don’t overestimate the wisdom of the average Joe of the Western world.
My first step in approaching the wisdom of any specific Joe, though, would be whether he considers himself all that smart and cynical or, well, about average. The latter would be wiser.
The fact that a large number of people in the West are waking up from the Zionist propaganda is very worrying to you?
Israel being evil doesn’t make Hamas the good guys. If you butcher unarmed men, women, and children, then you’re fucking evil. Fuck Isreal, and fuck Hamas.
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.
The Hamas guy in the OP is literally talking about how they would lay down arms and become a party. IRA to Sinn Fein.
(Will there be splinter hardliners? Sure! There is a civil war at the end of Independence. But there is a promise of peace after the civil war.)
The Hamas guy in the OP is literally talking about how they would lay down arms and become a party. IRA to Sinn Fein.
Yes, like I said, assuming complete good faith. But even then, laying down their arms wouldn’t mean that fighters for their cause would no longer exist; it would simply mean that a better-organized Palestinian military would take its place.
My point isn’t “Five year truce bad”, it’s “Five year truce good but there ARE reasons to not accept it even from an abstract standpoint”
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.
they accepted a two-state solution previously, the isreali PM that was negotiating with them at the time was assassinated.
Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli law student who didn’t believe in the peace talks. Hamas didn’t even kill him, Israel did it. No fucking surprise there.
That was in the 70’s, he was killed by a student, not the government.
And the PA, including Yasser Arafat, have turned it down 4 or 5 times. Yasser Arafat turned it down last time in 2002/2004(?). They have never taken it seriously.
Before 1948, Palestinian Leadership repeatedly advocated for a Unitary Binational State for decades: Palestinian Arab Congress advocating for Unified State 1928, Arab Higher Committee advocating for Unified State 1937, Arab League advocating for Unified State 1948
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.
Oslo Accord Sources: MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ
History of peace process - The Intercept
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.
- Avi Shlaim
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
They wanted a unified Arab state, and they wanted the non-Arab immigrants out
And failing that, they tried to put a genocide on them
Small details, I know
Well, they did fuck around and find out. Now they are facing an existential threat of their own and suddenly reasonable?
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.
What! They “won” an election that nobody outside HAMAS found legitimate??? And then the country they promise to exterminate reacted? No way!?!?!?!?
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.
Hamas 1988 Charter and Revised 2017 Charter
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.
The slogan From the River to the Sea is about Palestinian liberation that started in the 60s by the PLO for a democratic secular state, not Genocide. The Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad in 1966 maybe, but he’s not Palestinian.
History of Hamas supported by Netanyahu since 2012
No I don’t support Hamas as a ruling party, I want Palestinians to be able to have free fair elections.
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.
Holy misinformation batman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood
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.
They did side with the axis powers in WW2, but we’ve seen that elsewhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Army - the logic being that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Also,
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.
Exactly. I can’t understand why** people clutch their pearls at brown people siding with the Axis while accepting as an unfortunate side story the same thing from, say, Finland and nationalists in the Baltics or Ukraine.
Fuck Nazis but let’s be consistent in our standards about it.
**I mean, I can understand what racism is.
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.
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.
