Posted on 03/28/2002 11:53:17 AM PST by knighthawk
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) Hamas, the Islamic militant group that said it was behind a lethal suicide bombing in Israel this week, rejected the Arab peace initiative to Israel on Thursday and vowed to continue ``all kinds of resistance.''
``The summit resolutions are below the aspirations and the sacrifices of the Palestinian people. The resolutions ignored a lot of the Palestinian people's demands,'' Osama Hamdan, Hamas' representative in Lebanon, told The Associated Press.
The overture, endorsed Thursday by the Arab League at a two-day summit in Beirut, offered Israel peace, recognition and ``normal relations'' in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from war-conquered Arab lands, creation of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and a ``just solution'' for Palestinian refugees.
Hamas, which has conducted a string of deadly attacks during the 18-month Palestinian intefadeh, or uprising, said it sent a suicide bomber who killed 20 people and wounded more than 130 others Wednesday at a Passover dinner in the Israeli resort town of Netanya.
In Gaza City, Hamas spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantisi said the Arab summit did not change anything for his group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction.
``As long as there is occupation, there will be a resistance. So we say it clearly: Occupation should be stopped and then there will be something else,'' Rantisi said.
``I believe that the resistance and the intefadeh will continue in all forms,'' Hamdan said. Asked if ``all forms'' includes suicide bombings, he replied: ``The type of operation is left for Hamas' military wing to decide.''
Rantisi denied the Netanya bombing was timed to coincide with the Arab summit, which convened about seven hours before the bombing.
The Palestinian Authority said it ``strongly condemned'' the Netanya attack. Arafat ordered the arrests of key members of Hamas and two other militant groups, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat's own Fatah movement.
In Beirut, Hamdan said that, instead of offering Israel peace, the Arab summit ``should have cut all kinds of relations and contacts with the Zionist entity.''
``We want a clear commitment to the right of return to the Palestinian refugees'' and ``clear resolutions in support of the resistance and the intefadeh, he said. ``The Palestinian people want an Arab boycott in the face of Israeli aggression and terrorism against them.''
The peace initiative's call for a ``just solution'' for the refugee problem was based on U.N. resolutions that call for refugees either to return to land they lost in Israel or receive compensation.
Despite Hamas' hard-line stance on peace with Israel, a statement released by the group in Beirut noted what it called ``positive elements'' in the summit's final statement praise and support of the Palestinian uprising, the distinction it made between terrorism and resistance and a ``breakthrough'' in relations between Iraq and Kuwait.
I say negoitiate a blade into their backs.
The Great Passover War of 2002
Coming to a Hamas terrorist camp near you
Some Arabs may be willing to recognize Israel, but some never will, and consequently there will be continual violence in the Middle East, unless Israel gets tough and cleans out the nest of vermin.
BTW, kudos to Geraldo for getting that Hamas guy on video, and for Fox News Channel for airing it.
A reminder for everyone, Hamas is a terrorist group which has murdered Americans, is on our list of terrorist organizations, and with whom America is at war.
Hamas spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantisi said the Arab summit did not change anything for his group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction.
No amount of appeasment or compromise will result in the end of violence. The end of violence will only come about with the complete extermination of one side or the other as Hamas has admitted, though they wish the Israelies to be the ones to be exterminated.
It has been said (time and time again for those who support the Palestinians) that desperate times call for desperate measures. Suicide bombers are NOT desperate measures, they are INSANE measures by those who don't care about their own people. We fought for our independence but we didn't do it by blowing ourselves up and taking out innocent lives by design.
For the American Palestinian sympathizers who think the "occupied" lands should be returned (land gained by war started by the Arabs), apply that logic to the southwest and eastern seaboard of the U.S. Shall we return the southwestern U.S. to Mexico and the Eastern seaboard to England? That idiotic logic would suggest the same.
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