Talking to Hamas? - Increasing Expressions of Genocidal Intent by Hamas Leaders Against the Jews

Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi
JCPA
Vol. 10, No. 19
03 January '11


- Over the last few years there has been a steady drumbeat of calls from leading figures in the international community for Israel to open a dialogue with Hamas.

- Unfortunately, there is no evidence of a new pragmatism among the Hamas leadership, but only greater indications of a much harder line, which is expressed by its adoption of expressions of genocidal intent in its war against Israel and the Jewish people.

- In a December 2010 booklet marking the 23rd anniversary of the establishment of Hamas, Mohammed Def, head of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, wrote: "We say to our enemies: you are going on the path to extinction, and Palestine will remain ours....You have no right to even an inch of it."

- Ahmed al-Jaabari, the acting supreme commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, wrote: "Our eyes will...not be confined to the borders of Gaza. Our plan of struggle shall extend as always, sooner or later, to our entire plundered country....As long as the Zionists occupy our lands, only death or exile await them."

- Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya told al-Hayat on November 11, 2010: "We retain our Islamic, Arab and Palestinian faith that Palestine will be returned to its inhabitants and Zionist existence will conclude....The Jews will have no right there, save for those who lived on Palestinian land prior to the First World War" (meaning that only Jews above the age of 96 will be permitted to live in Islamic Palestine).

Over the last few years there has been a steady drumbeat of calls from leading figures in the international community for Israel to open a dialogue with Hamas. Despite Hamas' call for Israel's elimination, Hamas representatives have obtained platforms in some of the most prestigious mainstream Western media. Thus, Ahmed Yousef, a senior political advisor to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, appeared on the op-ed pages of both the Washington Post and the New York Times in 2007, where he presented the most minimal goals of "the end of occupation" and "freedom to be a nation."1 In an article on PalestineChronicle.com on December 25, 2010, Yousef, who serves today as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, repeated the moderate message that: "Gaza will always extend a hand of friendship to the international community; and will always welcome any dialogue that will help achieve stability, security and growth in the region."2

(Read full "Talking to Hamas?")

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