By
Mohammed Yassin, IOL Palestine Correspondent
GAZA,
August 19 (IsalmOnline) - Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of
the Islamic resistance group Hamas, said the Palestinian United
Leadership document could not be issued unless it guaranteed the
Palestinian right to self defense, and added that Hamas will not
accept it if it asks the Palestinian people to stop their resistance
and recognize Israel as a state.
In
an interview with IslamOnline Sunday, August 18, Sheikh Yassin said
Hamas has reservations about a number of points in the document, which
accepts the establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip alone.
“We
will never give up the Palestinian lands occupied in 1948,” Sheikh
Yassin said.
Another
reservation about the document stems from Hamas’s desire to have a
provisional Palestinian leadership until the time of the elections,
said Sheikh Yassin, pointing out that the present leadership has no
right to change the strategies of the Palestinian national forces or
take critical decisions such as stopping resistance and martyr
operations.
The
Palestinian Authority should give resistance ten more years and see
whether the results are more favorable than the results if the Oslo
agreements, he added.
“Ten
years of negotiations have brought nothing for the Palestinian
people,” he said. “Resistance has been the sole effective weapon
in the face of the mounting Israeli aggression, and it shall remain
our sole means to regain our rights.”
The
Hamas spiritual leader said the movement does not aim at hindering the
document of the united national and Islamic forces, but that it only
has reservations about it.
“We
seek nothing but a political and practical program that brings
together various resistance movements and unites them for the benefit
of the Palestinian people,” Sheikh Yassin told IslamOnline.
He
pointed out that Hamas has never backed off from attending meetings of
the Palestinian resistance movements, adding that a Hamas deputy has
taken part in the formation of the document. This participation,
however, does not necessarily mean that Hamas accepts the document.
Meanwhile,
Mohammad al-Hindi, a senior Islamic Jihad official said that the main
Palestinian movements will resume discussions on a common strategy for
the pursuit of the 22-month-old Intifada on Thursday, August 22.
"The
high committee of the National and Islamic Forces will meet Thursday
in Gaza City to discuss Islamic Jihad and Hamas's comments" on a
document for a united leadership, Al-Hindi said Saturday, August 17.
The
13 major Palestinian groups spent most of last week discussing a
united leadership document calling for the creation of a Palestinian
state within the 1967 borders, and an end to attacks inside Israel.
Talks
stalled Thursday night, reportedly over Islamic groups' insistence on
a Palestinian state on the whole of the area between the Mediterranean
and the Jordan river, including on the land which has made up the
state of Israel since 1948.
Jihad
and Hamas leaders have also refused to limit their retaliatory attacks
to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Hamas
blasted early Monday, August 19, Israel's intention to begin
implementing the "Gaza First" security plan as a cynical
plot to "destroy the resistance", a Hamas spokesman told
Agence France-Press (AFP).
"Hamas
and the Palestinian people reject any agreement which aims at
destroying our resistance and ending the Intifada [Palestinian
uprising against Israeli occupation], which is what this agreement is
aimed at," Gaza-based Hamas official Ismail Haniya told AFP.
The
Hamas leader was speaking after Israel announced late Sunday, August
18 it would start its "Gaza First" security plan Monday with
withdrawals from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
In return, Palestinian security forces are expected to police
resistance groups.
"This
will only give security and quiet to the Zionists and the occupation,
not to our people," Haniya said.
Haniya
vowed Hamas would keep fighting as long as Israel continued its
occupation of Palestinian territory.
"We
are not able to accept partial quiet in Gaza when all the cities,
towns and refugee camps in the West Bank are under Israeli aggression
and siege," Haniya added.
Hania
also slammed the agreement as a cynical "first step" to
secure some kind of calm before an expected U.S. attack on Iraq.
"I
am sure that the Israeli Zionists will not respect any agreement, but
this agreement is the first step before a strike on Iraq," he
said.
