Former US president Jimmy Carter said yesterday that Hamas is prepared to accept the Jewish state’s right to “live as a neighbor next door in peace.”
Hamas is also prepared to accept the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, provided it is approved in a Palestinian referendum, or by a Palestinian government chosen in new elections, Carter said.
However, a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip said Hamas wouldn’t be bound by a referendum’s results.
Photo: EPA
In the past, Hamas officials have said they would establish a “peace in stages” if Israel were to withdraw to the frontiers it held before the 1967 Middle East War. But it has been evasive about how it sees the final borders of a Palestinian state, and has not abandoned its official call for Israel’s destruction.
Carter relayed his message in a speech in Jerusalem after meeting for two days last week with top Hamas leaders in Syria. The speech capped a nine-day visit to the Middle East designed to break the deadlock between Israel and Hamas militants who rule Gaza.
Israel considers Hamas to be a terrorist group and has shunned Carter during his visit because of his meetings with Hamas’ supreme chief, Khaled Mashaal, and other group leaders. In his speech in Jerusalem, Carter urged Israel to negotiate directly with Hamas, saying failure to do so was hampering peace efforts.
“We do not believe that peace is likely and certainly that peace is not sustainable unless a way is found to bring Hamas into the discussions in some way,” he said. “The present strategy of excluding Hamas and excluding Syria is just not working.”
Syria harbors Hamas’ exiled leadership in its capital, Damascus, and supports the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas who warred with Israel in 2006.
Carter said Hamas wouldn’t undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said, Hamas would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Hamas leaders “said that they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders” and they would “accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor next door in peace,” he said.
The borders he referred to were the frontiers that existed before Israel captured large swaths of Arab lands in 1967.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri in Gaza said Hamas’ readiness to put a peace deal to a referendum “does not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum.”
Such a referendum, he said, would have to be voted on by Palestinians living all over the world. They number about 9.3 million, including some 4 million living in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
The Israeli and US governments disapprove of Carter’s overtures to Hamas, which they consider to be a terrorist organization.
Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he did not meet with Carter in Israel because he did not wish to be seen as participating in any negotiations with Hamas.
“The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria,” Carter said yesterday. “The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved.”
Carter said direct communication between Israel and Hamas could facilitate the release of a captured Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Schalit, who has been held in Gaza for nearly two years.
Israel agrees in principle to trade 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Schalit, but after back-and-forth talks through Egyptian intermediaries, it has approved only 71 of the specific prisoners that Hamas wants freed, he said.
Carter said Hamas has promised to let Schalit send a letter to his parents to assure them he is OK.
SECURITY: As China is ‘reshaping’ Hong Kong’s population, Taiwan must raise the eligibility threshold for applications from Hong Kongers, Chiu Chui-cheng said When Hong Kong and Macau citizens apply for residency in Taiwan, it would be under a new category that includes a “national security observation period,” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) on March 13 announced 17 strategies to counter China’s aggression toward Taiwan, including incorporating national security considerations into the review process for residency applications from Hong Kong and Macau citizens. The situation in Hong Kong is constantly changing, Chiu said to media yesterday on the sidelines of the Taipei Technology Run hosted by the Taipei Neihu Technology Park Development Association. With
A US Marine Corps regiment equipped with Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) is set to participate in the upcoming Balikatan 25 exercise in the Luzon Strait, marking the system’s first-ever deployment in the Philippines. US and Philippine officials have separately confirmed that the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — the mobile launch platform for the Naval Strike Missile — would take part in the joint exercise. The missiles are being deployed to “a strategic first island chain chokepoint” in the waters between Taiwan proper and the Philippines, US-based Naval News reported. “The Luzon Strait and Bashi Channel represent a critical access
‘FORM OF PROTEST’: The German Institute Taipei said it was ‘shocked’ to see Nazi symbolism used in connection with political aims as it condemned the incident Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 yesterday amid an outcry over a Nazi armband he wore to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case on Tuesday night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and apparently covering the book with a coat. This is a serious international scandal and Chinese
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE TRAINING: The ministry said 87.5 percent of the apprehended Chinese agents were reported by service members they tried to lure into becoming spies Taiwanese organized crime, illegal money lenders, temples and civic groups are complicit in Beijing’s infiltration of the armed forces, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a report yesterday. Retired service members who had been turned to Beijing’s cause mainly relied on those channels to infiltrate the Taiwanese military, according to the report to be submitted to lawmakers ahead of tomorrow’s hearing on Chinese espionage in the military. Chinese intelligence typically used blackmail, Internet-based communications, bribery or debts to loan sharks to leverage active service personnel to do its bidding, it said. China’s main goals are to collect intelligence, and develop a
RSS