Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have never recognized Israel’s right to exist. That is why they have repeatedly rejected all attempts by Muslim and Arab states to make peace with the Jewish state. Pictured: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks at a press conference held at Algeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Image source: Palestinian Media Watch)
Reminder: Hamas and the Palestinian Authority Do Not Believe In Any Peace Process
Any attempt to portray Hamas’s purported acceptance of U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s proposal to end the war in the Gaza Strip as a sign that either the Palestinian Authority (PA) or the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group is now interested in peace with Israel is misleading and baseless.
Neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority is, and never was, interested in peace with Israel. The only peace they envision is one that would see Israel eliminated and replaced with an Islamist state, preferably, each with itself as the head.
Trump is a man with good intentions, and his sincere efforts to end the war should be commended by all those who want to see an end to the death and destruction in the Gaza Strip. The US president, however, needs to bear in mind that both the Palestinian Authority and — a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood organization — were established with the sole purpose of waging jihad (holy war) to kill Jews and destroy Israel. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have never recognized Israel’s right to exist. That is why they have repeatedly rejected all attempts by Muslim and Arab states to make peace with the Jewish state.
In 1993, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat was describing the Oslo Accord he had just signed between Israel and the PLO to his own people — in Arabic — as basically no different from the Islamic Prophet Muhammad’s Treaty of Hudaibiyya, in which Muhammad agreed not to attack the tribe of Quraiysh for ten years, then gathered together an army, came back in two years, and wiped the tribe out.
Hamas, for its part, strongly opposed the Oslo Accords. The terror group, in addition, rejected the PLO’s alleged recognition of Israel’s right to exist, as expressed in a letter signed by Arafat but never ratified by the PLO. According to Hamas, the Oslo Accords “constitute treason to Islam and legitimization of the existence of the Zionist entity.”
It is worth noting that despite Arafat’s letter of recognition, his successor, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has made it clear that the Palestinians would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel,” Abbas declared in 2014.
In 2013, Hamas said that the Oslo Accords “have brought nothing but disasters and shame to our people, our national cause, and the present and future of our generations.” In 2021, in a statement marking the 28th anniversary of the signing of the first Oslo Accord, Hamas called on all Palestinian factions to form a broad national front to end the agreement. “The Palestinian people have spoken by adhering to the option of resistance [terrorism] as the path to liberating Palestine,” the terror group asserted.
In 2022, on the occasion of the anniversary of the first Oslo Accord, Hamas urged the PA to abrogate the agreement and revoke the PLO’s alleged recognition of Israel’s right to exist. “We call on all [Palestinian] factions, and on our people, to end the Oslo era and to agree on a unified strategy based on the comprehensive resistance,” Hamas stated.
Hamas’s “positive” response to Trump’s plan to end the war does not include a pledge to recognize Israel’s right to exist or end the terrorist group’s jihad to obliterate Israel. Hamas’s response also does not indicate any readiness to lay down its weapons or relinquish control over the Gaza Strip.
Hamas, in fact, rejected Trump’s proposal to place the Gaza Strip under a “temporary traditional governance of technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body.”
Hamas’s response clearly suggests that the terror group is opposed to any international administration and still sees itself playing a role in the management of the Gaza Strip in the day after the war:
“The other issues mentioned in President Trump’s proposal regarding the future of the Gaza Strip and the inherent rights of the Palestinian people are linked to a comprehensive national position and based on relevant international laws and resolutions. They are to be discussed within a comprehensive Palestinian national framework. Hamas will be part of it and will contribute to it with full responsibility.”
After delivering their reply to Trump’s proposal, senior Hamas officials announced that their group will not lay down its weapons. “Hamas will hand over its weapons [only] to the future Palestinian state,” Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk told the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera TV network. “The weapons will be in the hands of those who rule the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas’s partial acceptance of the Trump proposal, specifically to launch negotiations for the release of the 48 Israeli hostages being held in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, is nothing but a ploy that aims to win time to allow the terror group to regroup, rearm and prepare for more atrocities against Israel. Hamas does not see Trump’s proposal as a pathway for any kind of lasting peace in the Middle East. Rather, it considers the US proposal an opportunity for another temporary ceasefire, similar to previous ones reached with Israel — and which the terror group repeatedly breached.
Two years after the war that Hamas began by invading Israel and murdering 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and wounding thousands, the terror group, which has lost thousands of its men and most of its military capabilities, is understandably desperate for a lull in the fighting and the possibility of gaining more ground during the pause for negotiations.
Hamas remains fully committed to its 1988 charter, which quotes Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna as saying: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before.”
Notably, the charter also quotes the words of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”
In the eyes of both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, all proposals and peace initiatives are unacceptable and a “waste of time”:
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
—Hamas charter, Article 13.
Any proposal or deal that allows Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (or Qatar, but that is for a later date) to hold on to its weapons and maintain any form of presence in the Gaza Strip will only facilitate their plans to pursue jihad against Israel.
The group that carried out the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust and is responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians has no right to exist, not as a political, military or civilian force. As long as the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and other Qatari-promoted Palestinian terror groups exist, there will never be peace or stability in the Middle East.
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Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
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