What Does Hamas Want?

geoffff

This is what John Lyons says Hamas wants from this war*

Hamas's aim is to inflict as much damage on Israel as possible to strengthen the Palestinians' claim for a state.

While the group's charter calls for an end to Israel, in recent years its main power broker Khaled Meshal has publicly acknowledged that any Palestinian state would be along 1967 lines. In effect, this was an acknowledgment of Israel's right to exist along those lines.

This is not to try to portray Hamas as any peace-loving entity-- in my view its members are Neanderthals on a good day and terrorists on a bad one.

They lose all moral authority by firing at civilian targets in Israel as they do.

But Hamas's acknowledgment of a Palestinian state at least gives a starting point for the future. 

* The Australian 14 July 2014

Lyons is referring to this old and minor flurry among the left/liberals in the West to source his mighty scoop that Hamas has had the mother of all policy changes on Israel and recognised her right to exist.  

The Hamas "peace" offer was  an offer of a Hudna of ten years duration. No shelling or terrorism for ten years. After that all bets are off. 

In return Israel must immediately and permanently withdraw all military and population to the 1967 lines, including Jerusalem, recognise Palestine and allow all Palestinians the "right of return" to Israel which will therefore have no sovereignty over her borders or population.

Hamas however would not be required to recognise Israel. This was made explicit. 

Meshal's "offer" was not "public", but in private interviews with selected Western journalists.  Only a Western journalist would characterise such a thing as "public" given there was a not a whisper about it in Gaza.  

There is no way Hamas would risk confusing the message to the punters. 

"Apart from the time restriction (a truce that lapses after 10 years) and the refusal to accept Israel's existence, Mr. Meshal's terms approximate the Arab League peace plan . . ."

-- Hamas peace plan, as explained by the New York Times

"Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

-- Tom Lehrer, satirist

As Charles Krauthammer wrote 8 May 2009 Washington Post

The Times conducted a five-hour interview with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal at his Damascus headquarters. Mirabile dictu, they're offering a peace plan with a two-state solution. Except. The offer is not a peace but a truce that expires after 10 years. Meaning that after Israel has fatally weakened itself by settling millions of hostile Arab refugees in its midst, and after a decade of Hamas arming itself within a Palestinian state that narrows Israel to eight miles wide -- Hamas restarts the war against a country it remains pledged to eradicate.

This is Khaled Meshal on 9 December 2009 saying in public what Hamas wants 

"Palestine is ours, from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on an inch of the land,"  "We will never recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation and therefore there is no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take."

Is This Public Enough?

"Give that bald Australian bloke in glasses a seat up front."

Who are we to believe? What Khaled Meshal says Hamas wants?  Or what Lyons says Khaled Meshal says Hamas wants? Both in public to the mob and in private to Western journalists such as shown here?

Gee, that's a tough one. 

However for so thoroughly distorting the message of what Hamas is all about by so thoroughly and ... dishonestly really, distorting Hamas's message, earns Lyons his first nomination for the Bush Turkey duh.   

It leaves you wondering about the motives of such journalists. 

Lyons could only portray this as an acknowledgement by Hamas of Israel's right to exist by not reporting what actually happened. By telling a ... how can I put this delicately? ... a porkie.

He has done this while Israel has once again been forced to war against viciously armed and entrenched terrorists bent on murdering as many of the Israeli civilian population as it can and a good number of its own in the process.

Why does Lyons do that? To make Hamas look like it had any kind of "moral authority" to lose, even with the most recent attacks on civilians aside? To pretend that at root they are not as vicious and deluded as they are? To contend that it is Israel who is unreasonable. To portray it as all Israel's fault anyway?

Perhaps in truth, Lyons thinks that the Jews deserve these beatings and its their fault that there can not be a day of peace until the Israelis give to their enemies what their enemies demand of them.   

cross posted Geoffff's Joint