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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Hamas leader offers Israel 10-year truce |
| 2008-04-23 |
| The exiled leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas offered Israel a 10-year truce on Monday if it withdraws from lands it seized in the 1967 Mideast war as proof of recognition of a Palestinian state on those lands. Khaled Mashaal said Hamas will accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, a departure from the group's customary claim to all of Israel, Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank for Palestinians. Mashaal's comments appear to be the group's strongest indication of potential acceptance of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and came hours after former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said the group is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbour next door in peace." "We accept a state on the June 4 line with Jerusalem as capital, real sovereignty and full right of return for refugees, but without recognizing Israel," Mashaal told reporters in the Syrian capital of Damascus, in reference to the June 4, 1967, line that has been cited in previous Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But Mashaal said Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, would never outright formally recognize the Jewish state. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, held controversial talks last week with Mashaal and other Hamas officials in Syria, despite the disapproval of the Israeli and U.S. governments, which consider Hamas a terrorist organization. In a speech in Jerusalem Monday, Carter said Hamas won't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said, Hamas would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. "There's no doubt that both the Arab world and Hamas will accept Israel's right to exist in peace within 1967 borders," Carter said. Mashaal also said Hamas would "respect Palestinian national will even if it was against our convictions," in an apparent reference to the referendum plan. Meanwhile on Monday, another Hamas spokesman, Abu Jandal, told a Hamas-linked newspaper that the militant group would carry out harsher attacks on Israel-Gaza crossings, saying last week's assaults that killed three Israeli soldiers were just "practice," according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 It's Hudna™ time!!! Basically, they're saying : "agree to our demands, and we'll wait 10 years before trying to destroy you again, hoping that in the meantime our population will have swelled through our insane birthrates and that we'll have endoctrined and armed our Youths to the hilt... also, we hope that our cause will have by then advanced on other fronts, the USA being in retreat, Europe being islamized, islam's worldview and demands dominant in international bodies, and radical leaders having won power in many if not all islamic countries. Time is on, our side; then, we'll destroy you." Who could pass such a sweet occasion? |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-04-23 15:10 |
| #1 2018 > just in time for RUSSIA'S ANTI-US "WAR NOT ONLY POSSIBLE BUT DESIRED" WAR, or in the altern the SPACE ROCK RUSS PERTS ALSO SAID COULD HIT EARTH. HAMAS won't have to recognize Israel - OOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPSIES. See also Year 2022 for another Space Rock flyby. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-04-23 03:24 |