TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - The Palestinian prime minister vowed his Hamas-led government will never recognize Israel and will fight for Jerusalem, telling a crowd at an Iranian mosque on Friday that he will resist U.S. pressure to moderate.Ismail Haniyeh's sermon came on the first day of his visit to an increasingly influential ally of the Hamas movement. Iran has given $120 million to the Hamas-led government, which is starved for funds because of a financial blockade by the West. Hamas officials in Gaza said they expected Iran to pledge more money to Haniyeh, around $30 million a month.
However much Haniyeh can stuff into his pants. Maybe get some pointers from Sandy Burglar?
The United States and other Western countries are pressing Hamas, which took over the Palestinian government after winning January elections, to recognize Israel and renounce violence. Haniyeh said he would do no such thing, adopting his hosts' label of "the world arrogance" to refer to the U.S. during his sermon to thousands of Friday prayer worshippers at Tehran University.
"The world arrogance and Zionists ... want us to recognize the usurpation of the Palestinian lands and stop jihad and resistance and accept the agreements reached with the Zionist enemies in the past," Haniyeh said, speaking in Arabic with a simultaneous translation into Farsi.
"We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem," he said.
An official in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office, David Baker, said Haniyeh's comments were "precisely this type of extremist rhetoric that fuels terror and has prevented any chance of progress between Israel and the Palestinians."
And yet Olmert sits on his hands.