This Ongoing War..
18 March '13..
Khaled Abu Toameh, writing on the Gatestone Institute website ["Hamas: We are Not Terrorists; We Just Want to Destroy Israel"] today, says there's a Hamas campaign underway right now to have the U.S. State Department remove Hamas from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. He points out that this not because of any change in how Hamas operates.
Hamas wants to be removed from the list without changing its strategy or charter, which call for jihad [holy war] and which do not recognize Israel's right to exist. Hamas is also not prepared to dismantle its armed group, Izaddin al-Kassam, as part of its effort to persuade the US and EU to drop it from the list of terrorist groups. Nor is Hamas prepared to stop smuggling weapons or give up thousands of rockets and mortars that it possesses in various parts of the Gaza Strip. And of course Hamas is not prepared to renounce violence in the context of its effort to seek legitimacy in the international community.
So for all the above compelling reasons (!), we can understand why Hamas is focusing its efforts on getting a number of European Union countries to give it their support. (Obviously!)
Hamas claims that it has won the secret backing of a number of EU governments - a claim denied by the EU... The Hamas demand was first raised by the movement's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, during a meeting with European supporters in the Gaza Strip last month. Ghazi Hamad a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, says that his movement is putting pressure on several countries to change their position toward his movement. He believes that there has already been a "positive change" in the minds of Western and Arab societies toward Hamas.
(Continue)
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