Fatah Demands Apology From Hamas

While Israel dismissed the revised Hamas platform as a transparent bid to deceive the world, some people, at least, did take it seriously — namely, the people at Fatah, also known as the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority faction demanded an apology from Hamas for accusing them of treason to their cause for having accepted a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict, a position which Hamas itself now appears to have adopted, at least temporarily.

“Hamas’s new document is identical to that taken by Fatah in 1988. Hamas is required to make an apology to Fatah after 30 years of accusing us of treason for that policy,” Fatah spokesman Osama al-Qawasme said, according to Reuters.

However, any careful reading of the document shows that the Hamas terrorist organization, while it refers to the 1967 lines, consistent with a recent U.N. Security Council resolution, does not for a moment abandon its mission of destroying Israel.

“Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea,” the document states. “However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”

To be dispel any possible lingering doubt about their intentions, Hamas officials said the document – which reserves the right to wage “resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine” – does not contemplate recognition of Israel, Times of Israel reported.