Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh ruled out any talk of the Hamas-led
government he heads recognizing Israel or ending the fight against the Jewish
state until Israel commits to withdrawing from Palestinian land.
Palestinian Prime
Minister in the Hamas-led government Ismail Haniyeh arrives to assume his
new post in Gaza March 30, 2006. Haniyeh on Friday ruled out any talk of
the Hamas-led government he heads recognizing Israel or ending the fight
against the Jewish state until Israel commits to withdrawing from
Palestinian land. [Reuters] |
In a column that appeared in London's Guardian newspaper on Friday, Haniyeh
said "we have every right to respond with all available means" if Israel
continues to launch attacks and to impose "sanctions" on Palestinians.
Haniyeh's column, which lists his email address as [email protected], was
published one day after four Israelis were killed in a suicide bombing by the
Palestinian militant group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Hamas called the attack a "natural response to Israeli crimes."
Sworn in on Wednesday, Haniyeh's new government has been under pressure from
the "Quartet" of Middle East mediators to recognize Israel's right to exist,
renounce violence and abide by interim peace deals.
In a statement on Thursday, Quartet partners the United States, the European
Union, Russia and the United Nations warned Hamas that direct foreign assistance
to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority would inevitably be affected by its
refusal to meet their demands.
"The message from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to world powers is
this: talk to us no more about recognizing Israel's 'right to exist' or ending
resistance until you obtain a commitment from the Israelis to withdraw from our
land and recognize our rights," Haniyeh wrote.
He rebuffed threats by Western powers to cut off direct assistance to the
Palestinian Authority. "We will persist, and our friends have pledged to fill
the gap," Haniyeh said, in an apparent reference to Iran and other Muslim
states.
In the column, Haniyeh criticized what he called "scandalous double
standards" by the United States and the European Union in making demands of
Hamas without putting pressure on Israeli interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to
abandon Jewish settlements and to halt unilateral measures.
Olmert's centrist Kadima party won Tuesday's election on plans to set
Israel's final borders within four years with or without the agreement of its
Palestinian neighbor.
"Olmert's unilateralism is a recipe for conflict," Haniyeh wrote. "It is a
plan to impose a permanent situation in which the Palestinians end up with a
homeland cut into pieces made inaccessible because of massive Jewish settlements
built in contravention of international law on land seized illegally from the
Palestinians."
Haniyeh added: "No plan will ever work without a guarantee, in exchange for
an end to hostilities by both sides, of a total Israeli withdrawal from all the
land occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem; the release of all our
prisoners; the removal of all settlers from all settlements; and recognition of
the right of all refugees to return."