by Ali Younes, June 07, 2016.

Hamas’ foreign policy chief, Osama Hamdan, speaks to Al Jazeera on the French peace drive and reconciliation with Fatah.

Last Friday, France hosted a foreign ministers’ meeting to
put Israel-Palestinian peace talks back on the international agenda and
to bring the two sides back to direct talks by the end of the year.
However, according to analysts, nothing emerged from the meeting as the
French initiative appeared to have been emptied of all substance owing to US indifference and Israeli hostility.

Osama Hamdan, the Lebanon-based foreign policy chief of Hamas, speaks
to Al Jazeera about the current French drive to revive the peace talks
with Israel, Hamas’ position on engaging in direct peace talks with
Israel, and reconciliation efforts with Fatah, as well as the
possibility of a prisoner swap deal with Israel.

Al Jazeera: The French government has put
forth a proposal to revive the peace efforts between Israel and the
Palestinians. What is Hamas’ position on it?

Osama Hamdan: We did not think there was anything
new in the French initiative. However, it looks like it was meant to
help Israel more than anything else after it became clear that Israel is
blocking every effort to resolve the conflict.

The initiative is also designed to fill the vacuum that the Americans
left after they became totally disengaged from making any effort to
strike a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

The most dangerous element about the French proposal, however, is
that it establishes new parameters to deal with the refugees’ problem
when it proposes monetary compensation in exchange for abandoning the
right of return.

Palestinians must not only reject this approach to the refugees’
issue, but also insist on the right of return and the right for
compensation for the years spent in forced exile. 


Al Jazeera: Is Hamas, as a matter of principle, willing to negotiate peace with Israel?


Hamdan: Palestinians have been engaged in peace
talks with Israel since 1992, and until today, we got nowhere despite
all the promises of otherwise. Moreover, it was Israel that has always
blocked the peace from taking place. Oslo Accord was signed in 1993 and
it was supposed to result in a Palestinian state. But seven years after
Oslo, the Palestinians discovered that there was no Israeli commitment
to agree on the formation of a viable Palestinian state.


Al Jazeera: But Hamas was accused at the time of derailing the peace process with a series of violent attacks against Israelis?


Hamdan: This is not true; Hamas exercised acts of
resistance against the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians.
During the same period, Israel never stopped its attacks and aggression
against us.


Al Jazeera: But why would you engage in acts of resistance during peace talks that were supposed to give you what you want?


Hamdan: Israel, too, was engaged in attacks against
us during this period of the peace process. I want to remind you that
whenever Israel stopped its attacks against us, we, too, stopped our
counter-attacks. Our attacks in 1996 were in response to Israel’s
targeted assassinations of many leaders of the resistance such as Yahya
Ayyash.

In other words, Israel has no right to say that there is a peace
process while at the same time engaging in aggression and attacks
against us and demanding that the Palestinians not respond to such
attacks, just because there is or there was a peace process going on.

Al Jazeera: Are there captured Israeli prisoners held by Hamas?


Hamdan: There is a clear announcement from
al-Qassam Brigades [Hamas’ military wing] that there are Israeli
soldiers who were captured during the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza.
Al-Qassam did not announce any details about this as part of its own
strategy in dealing with the prisoners’ issue.


Al Jazeera: What about their numbers? Are they alive or dead, and is there any secret talks to strike a prisoners swap deal?


Hamdan: There is no information at this point as
to whether those Israelis are dead or alive. Until this point, we cannot
say that there are negotiations over the issue. Hamas had been
approached by several intermediaries; however, this did not reach the
level of actual negotiations. This is, of course, because negotiations
require an agreement from both sides. 

Right now, we are not even sure if the Israelis have authorised
anyone to negotiate on their behalf over this subject. At the same time,
the Israelis have not announced yet that they are interested in
negotiation to have their prisoners released.

We in Hamas, however, assured all the intermediaries that we welcome
their efforts and we are ready to negotiate with Israel over this
issue, but only after we make sure that they are authorised to represent
the Israeli government. We still don’t have that commitment yet. 

Al Jazeera: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and his newly appointed Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman,
said last week that they support the two-state solution as a principle
for solving the conflict. What do you say to that?

Hamdan: Up until this point the Israeli leadership
has made no real or concrete steps that show how serious they are about
the two-state solution. Israel’s attempts to change facts on the ground
in Jerusalem are killing the two-state solution because the
Palestinians would never accept a state without Jerusalem as its
capital.

More, the building of more illegal settlements on Palestinian lands
has increased since the signing of the Oslo agreement taking over 40
percent of the West Bank and thus effectively ending the idea of having
Palestinian state.

Also imposing economic hardship on the Palestinians in addition to
the siege on Gaza does not send any positive signals to the Palestinians
that the Israelis have agreed with the formation of a Palestinian
state.

In my opinion, the Israelis were actually buying time in order to
change facts on the ground to torpedo any solution that would give the
Palestinians a state.


Al Jazeera: But would you then negotiate over those “new facts”?


Hamdan: Why would we negotiate over the removal of
illegal settlements? According to international law, Israel built its
settlements on occupied Palestinian territories illegally. Also there
are several UN resolutions that demand Israel withdraw from the occupied
Palestinian territories.

Thus, what is needed, realistically, is for Israel to declare that it
wants to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, proving to the Palestinians
that it is serious about having peace with the Palestinians. In theory,
it would have made sense in 1993, but for Palestinians, after 23 years
of failed negotiations with Israel that got us from bad to worse, I
don’t think we are ready to repeat the same experience with Israel, at
least under the same conditions.

Al Jazeera: What prevents Fatah and Hamas from reconciliation and forming a national unity government?

Hamdan: I don’t think one group can negate or cross
the other out. The Palestinian society – as a whole – has diverse
political views and preferences that would prevent one group from
dominating or negating the other.

This [political] diversity should be a source of strength, not
weakness. At this stage of our political struggle, what we need is a
democratic partnership where power is transferred from one political
group to another.


Al Jazeera: What then prevents both Fatah and Hamas from forming the long-awaited national unity government?


Hamdan: Hamas has signed a written agreement with
Fatah committing to all the points, including the formation of a
national unity government, having one national authority to represent
all Palestinians. We also agreed that Palestinian presidential guards
take control of the crossing points with Egypt and with Israel.

I think Mahmoud Abbas [the Palestinian president] is not really
interested in forming a unity government with Hamas, partly because he
believes that Hamas will win in any future elections, while Fatah has
been weakened by internal rivalries.

Moreover, it appears that Abbas does not believe in the principle of
partnership or power sharing. Because he knows that once there is
partnership, and power sharing, decisions will no longer be made
arbitrarily or by one man as is the case today.


Al Jazeera: What would be Hamas’ position if Israel accepted
to negotiate a peace agreement based on its withdrawal from the 1967
borders on the condition that the future Palestinian state must be a
demilitarised entity?


Hamdan: We have a firm belief that Palestinians have
the right to self-determination. Once statehood is achieved,
Palestinians will decide the nature of that state. But when the Israelis
dictate that the Palestinian state must be un-armed or demilitarised,
it makes us worry.

Palestinians are the ones being attacked, and Palestinians are the
weaker side, so when Israel [the stronger party] demands that the weaker
side be stripped of its capability to defend itself in any case, it
means that Israel intends to continue to behave in the same manner it
does now; a controlling military and economic overlord over our lives.

And when the Israelis, or others, speak of “security guarantees”, in
reality it is we, the Palestinians, who are in need of such guarantees,
not the other way around. And if Israel says it really wants peace with
us and in the region, then it does not need the huge military arsenal it
has now.

We believe that when Israel say that we must be unarmed, we believe
Israel is just not serious about peace with the Palestinians.



 SOURCE: Al Jazeera