A co-founder of Hamas made clear this week that the terror organisation’s recently published policy document did not contradict the 1987 founding charter and that there was ‘no alternative’ to the total liberation of Palestine and destruction of Israel.
During a speech at a conference in Gaza on Wednesday, Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar said: “If we liberate Palestine through the resistance until the 1967 borders, we will go directly to liberate the rest of Palestine and the territories of 1948, and there will be no negotiations”.
Remarking on the international response to the new document, al-Zahar said: “When people say that Hamas has accepted the 1967 borders, like others, it is an offence to us”.
He underlined that Hamas does not recognise Israel’s right to exist: “We have reaffirmed the unchanging constant principles that we do not recognise Israel; we do not recognise the land occupied in 1948 as belonging to Israel and we do not recognise that the people who came here (Jews) own this land”.
The new political appendage to its founding 1987 charter in an apparent attempt to rebrand itself as a more ‘moderate’ organisation and gain international favour.
The policy document, which does not replace the founding charter, upholds the organisation’s call for an armed struggle against Israel and rejects and recognition of Israel.
