Posted on 01/29/2006 6:15:16 AM PST by SJackson
LONDON: Mahmoud Zahar, the joint leader of Hamas which has been voted to power in last week's Palestinian election, has ruled out recognising Israel.
"We are not going to recognize Israel," Zahar said in an interview published in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday, putting paid to suggestions that Hamas may alter its 1988 charter calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
But he added: "We can reach out to them with a long-term hudna (truce)."
In the interview given in Gaza city, Zahar also called on the world to recognise Hamas.
"The outside world must not fear us," he said, adding that while Hamas did not yet have official contact with the west, "we have channels of communication."
"We meet all the time," said Zahar, who first rose to power in Hamas in 1989, a year after Ahmed Yassin was jailed by Israel for ordering the execution of alleged collaborators with the Jewish state.
"Spies and thieves must fear us," he said, in his pastel-coloured reception room in the Gaza city, where he was holding court as the new most powerful man in town, the daily reported.
The "thieves," he said, in a reference to Israel, "are those who steal our land."
At the same time, he said "we must not cancel everything" in reference to the series of deals and accords that the Palestinian Authority has so far signed with Israel.
"There is a reality and we must deal with it." Answering a question, Zahar said "It's not a personal ambition of mine to be prime minister.
According to the report, Hamas may instead be seeking for the top job an independent candidate who could facilitate a rapprochement with a world where it continues to be seen as a terror group.
The organisation's first choice for the post, Salam Fayyad, a technocrat who until recently was the Palestinian finance minister, has turned it down.
That is in fact what Hamas desperately wants. They should not be allowed to get away with it.
It does remind one of the series of negotiations with Hitler.
That's been the formally adopted plan since 1974, reunification with Jordan in preparation for the final assault.
Time will tell if they get away with it. They have their suupporters in the West.
LOL, yeah they should rename their bottle rocket to the Hudna. "If it hits land, it will probably be yours, inshallah! Or in Jordan!"
Dear Mahmoud, no one fears you, it's called loathing.
Hunda is not a peace...it is a temporary cease fire while they re-arm.
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