Palestine: Conflicting Statements from Hamas on Israel's Right to Exist

Following a meeting in Hebron with British millionaire David Martin Abrahams on Wednesday, Aziz Dwaik, a Hamas senior representative and the elected speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank, said that Hamas has accepted Israel’s right to exist and would be prepared to alter its charter.

There have been two developments since then. Firstly, there have been contradictory signals from Hamas, with some officials saying the group accepts the two-state solution but only as a temporary measure and others declaring that they accept Israel's right to exist and want dialogue.

Palestine: Hamas & Fatah Battle Over Legitimacy of Legislative Council
Israel-Palestine: Netanyahu Makes A Move on the West Bank

Mahmoud Ramahi, another top Hamas operative in the West Bank, said that his movement was indeed willing to accept an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines, but only on a temporary basis and without recognizing Israel's right to exist.



Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas representative in the Gaza Strip, confirmed that his movement was considering the possibility of changing its charter. In an interview with the Saudi daily Okaz, Hamad said that the Hamas charter, like any other document, may be subject for changes and discussions. However, Hamad also stressed that "accepting" Israel did not mean that Hamas would "recognize" the Jewish state.

In contrast, Salah Bardaweel, a Hamas legislator and spokesman from the Gaza Strip, said that his movement was not seeking the destruction of Israel. Bardaweel spoke to a Hamas-affiliated Web site:

There is a huge difference between our demand to restore the Palestinian people's rights and the annihilation of Israel. We haven't said that [we want] to destroy Israel, but we are striving to restore our people's rights and refugees' right to return to their dwellings and land from which they were deported.

Meanwhile, the rival Palestinian organisation Fatah tried to exploit Hamas' apparent concession to Israel.. "The true face of Hamas has finally been exposed by Dwaik's remarks to the British millionaire," said Ahmad Assaf, a spokesman for Fatah in the West Bank. Asaf continued:

Hamas is seeking recognition of the international community at the expense of the Palestinians' interests and national rights. In one voice directed toward our people and Arabs and Muslims, Hamas is saying that it's a resistance movement. In another voice directed toward the international community, Hamas is talking about its readiness to recognize Israel and accept a long-term hudna [temporary truce].

At the same time, a senior Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah condemned initiatives by some EU citizens and officials to talk to Hamas, accusing them of "ignoring the fact that Hamas had staged a coup in the Gaza Strip". He said:

Meetings between Hamas and Westerners is undermining efforts to achieve reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. Those who are trying to legitimize Hamas are harming the Palestinian Authority and any chance of achieving peace with Israel.

The Palestinian Authority has also sent an aggressive signal, as security agents on Sunday arrested six men who work as aides to Dwaik. The Hamas representative condemned the arrest of his aides as "an act of piracy" and "an assault on his parliamentary immunity". He also warned that the arrests could harm efforts by some Arab countries to achieve "national reconciliation" between Hamas and Fatah.

Israel-Palestine: An Economic Platform for the Peace Process?

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the Secretary-General of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, Angel Gurria, signed an agreement on Tuesday paving the way for Israel to become the 32nd member of  the OECD this May.

Israeli President Shimon Peres stated that membership in the organization would enable Israel to show the world its technological and scientific ability.

However, a West Jerusalem official was cautious: "In politics, nothing is final until it's final, and today there are more countries angry with Israel." Earlier Tuesday, Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi urged the OECD to reject Israel's request for membership, saying state-led discrimination against the Arab sector ran counter to the group's regulations. On the economic side, the OECD is concerned about the country's high level of national debt relative to gross domestic product, as well as its heavy spending on security.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad received 158 million euros from the European Union as part of the 500 million euros in  aid to the Palestinians for 2010. However, the EU representative to the Palestinian Authority, Christian Burger, warned PA that this support would not continue without clear progress in the peace process with Israel.

Turkey: Is the EU Shutting Out Ankara?

Our newest correspondent, Fulya Inci, notes difficulties over Turkey's application to join the European Union:

Talks over Turkey's accession to the European Union have recently been frozen. Indeed, in Turkey, the issue has been eclipsed on the agenda by domestic problems and Ankara's pursuit of engagement withe neighbouring countries. Some European leaders, meanwhile, continue their campaign against Turkey’s accession. Although a new chapter in Europe opened last month with the Treaty of Lisbon, the hostility of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Angela Merkel in Germany over expansion to include Ankara is unabated.

David Cronin from The Guardian tries to break the deadlock of “unresolved questions”, the advising European leaders to stop acting like a Christian club and deviating from their claims of democracy and “cherish[ing] diversity.” Cronin suggests that Turkey take positive steps over Cyprus and human rights while the EU offers an advance on membership status:

Istanbul is haunted by a unique type of melancholy, Orhan Pamuk writes in his wondrous book on Turkey's largest city. Known as hüzün, "the black mood shared by millions of people together" is particularly dense on cold winter mornings "when the sun suddenly falls on the Bosphorus and the faint vapour almost rises from the surface".

Many Turks must be overcome by a comparable weariness (this one not mitigated by beautiful scenery) when they hear of their country's never-ending quest for membership of the European Union. More than 22 years after Turkey first applied to join, the prospect of its EU entry seems as remote as ever, even if formal accession talks began in 2005.

With progress in those negotiations already sluggish, primarily because of unresolved questions over the future of Cyprus, there is now a new hurdle to be overcome. Bulgaria has indicated it will block Turkey's membership unless compensation is paid for the expulsion of Thracians by Ottoman forces in the early 20th century.

It is only right that Turkey should be required to improve its human rights record in order to join the union. The aforementioned Pamuk is among those to have fallen victim to its restrictions on free speech; the Nobel laureate was prosecuted over a 2005 interview in which he discussed the genocide perpetrated by Ottoman forces against 1.5m Armenians nine decades earlier. While charges against him were eventually erased on a technicality and while important gestures of friendship towards Armenia have been made by the present Turkish leadership, the Ankara authorities continue to muffle voices of dissent. This has been illustrated by a ruling from the Turkish constitutional court last month, banning the Kurdish Democratic Society party.

Such curbs on expression, however, have nothing to do with the antipathy directed at Turkey by Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Angela Merkel in Germany. Rather, their opposition to Turkey's bid for EU membership is explained by what a columnist in the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet accurately described as "basic facts not pronounced openly" on Monday. "Turkey is a Muslim country," Mehmet Ali Birand wrote. "And Europe is not ready yet to accept a Muslim country in the EU."

This anti-Turkish bias is tantamount to racism. Even though the EU institutions officially claim to cherish diversity, there is a tacit agreement among some of their most powerful leaders that the union must remain predominantly Christian. Herman Van Rompuy, the EU's new president, is one of the few to have voiced this desire in a public forum (and that was long before his recent elevation in status). "The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey," he told a meeting at the Belgian parliament in 2004.

As a Christian myself (albeit not a devout one), I am not sure what teachings of the poor Nazarene that Van Rompuy professes to follow provide a justification for slamming the door on adherents to another faith. If a golf club adopted a similar policy of exclusion, there is a strong likelihood it would be sued for breaching equality laws. The EU is nominally a club of democracies; why is it allowed to discriminate on religious grounds?