'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Meshaal: the longer NYT text, and a question about Haaretz

So, later in the day on Tuesday, after I had complained about the NYT only running tiny snippets from Taghreed al-Khodary's five-hour interview with Hamas head Khaled Meshaal, the NYt did put some longer excerpts from the interview onto its website.

That's excellent news. (I had looked on the website for some longer version of the interview, a couple of times during the day Tuesday, but never found them. Thanks to the friend who sent me this link.)

Here is the first topic he speaks to, which is very important:

On the Hamas Charter and a Palestinian State:

The most important thing is what Hamas is doing and the policies it is adopting today. The world must deal with what Hamas is practicing today. Hamas has accepted the national reconciliation document. It has accepted a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders including East Jerusalem, dismantling settlements, and the right of return based on a long term truce. Hamas has represented a clear political program through a unity government. This is Hamas's program regardless of the historic documents. Hamas has offered a vision. Therefore, it's not logical for the international community to get stuck on sentences written 20 years ago. It's not logical for the international community to judge Hamas based on these sentences and stay silent when Israel destroys and kills our people.

The rest of it is really worth reading, too.

Today, there is news (e.g. here) that the reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fateh are in a bad state.

But beyond that, Haaretz is running a story that starts thus:

The Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas will not accept a two-state solution as a means to end the conflict with Israel, the movement's Damascus-based politburo chief Khaled Meshal said Saturday.

Meshal said that Hamas rejects the two-state solution but could still be part of a national unity government if a Palestinian state is established based on 1967 borders.

They give no further details regarding the context or provenance of that "news". They do not have a correspondent in Damascus (!), so they must have gotten it from somewhere-- though they give no clue as to where, let alone giving due attribution to the source.

I did a quick search to see what news report it might be they were referring to. Can anyone help identify the source? Or is their lede there just based on a misunderstanding? Or is it a really mendacious piece of disinformation?

Haaretz is, generally, a pretty good source of information. But there are, certainly, people who work there who are strongly opposed to Hamas.