Cairo: Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has governed the population of the Gaza Strip for a decade, is drafting a new platform to present a more pragmatic and cooperative face to the world, Hamas officials confirmed on Thursday.
The document would mark a departure from the group’s contentious 1988 charter, in which it promised to “obliterate” Israel and characterised its struggle as specifically against Jews. The new document defines Hamas’ enemies as “occupiers”.
“It means that we don’t fight Jews because they are Jews,” said Taher al-Nounou, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. “Our struggle is only against those who occupied our lands.”
The new document would accept the boundaries of the territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war as the basis for a Palestinian state. It would not recognise Israel, however, nor would it give up future claims to all of what Hamas considers Palestinian lands.
Mr Nounou said the document, the result of four years’ work, is not yet final and has not yet been approved by Hamas’ governing bodies.
Nor are its contents wholly new, even though they seem now to carry both practical and symbolic weight, particularly in Hamas’ relations with Egypt. Egypt controls the southern border of Gaza, limiting the movement of people and goods in and out of the increasingly impoverished territory. Israel controls access from all other sides, including the Mediterranean, in what critics call a siege against the enclave of more than 2 million people.
Read the full article by Ian Fisher and Majd al-Waheidi at The Age.