'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Meshaal on the Palestinian state alongside Israel; Nunu on the tahdi'eh

Al-Hayat had an interesting article today (Arabic), combining reports of Hamas's positions from their correspondents in both Damascus and Gaza... (HT: the spouse.)

From Damascus, the Hayat people report that Khaled Meshaal "sent an implicit political message to Pres. Obama" when he told a press conference held by the "Palestinian National Conference" in Damascus that,

Hamas and most of the Palestinian forces accepted, through the 2006 document of national agreement [that would be, I think, the Prisoners' Document] the principle of establishing a fully sovereign Palestinian state on all the land occupied in 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital, after the dismantling of all the settlements, and along with attainment of the Right of Return and [the state having] full sovereignty over the land and airspace and borders and crossing-points.

He stressed that his movement "still rejects the conditions of the international Quartet because they are oppressive and they cannot lead to the attainment of Palestinian interests."

The Hayat reporters judged that another important implied political message to Obama came from Taher al-Nunu, the spokesman for the still-besieged Haniyeh government, when he stressed the government's readiness to abide by a renewed tahdi'eh with Israel.

Nunu's statement came a day before Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak is due to meet with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. Mubarak's intel chief Omar Suleiman has been the sole mediator in the "proximity talks" that have continued between Hamas and Israel since the end of the Gaza war over the two topics of strengthening the still-fragile and un-negotiated brace of ceasefires that went into operation January 18, and the prisoner exchange issue. Egypt is also the main mediator in the still-limping reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fateh.

Nunu went out of his way-- on behalf of, I assume, Haniyeh and the whole Hamas leadership-- to express support for Egypt's role in all these peace efforts. Egypt will also, of course, be the place where Obama will make his big "speech to the Muslim world" early next month.

For my part, I'm hoping Obama will use his time in Egypt to nudge his hosts along to more speed and success in all the negotiations they have been sponsoring, which have thus far not resulted in any successes and have left the 1.5 million people of Gaza in terrible distress.

(Question: What will Obama say about Gaza when he is in Egypt? Kind of embarrassing if he gets that close to Gaza and doesn't even mention it... Of course, it would be even better if he had the guts to go and visit it... Obama at the Rafah crossing: "Mr. President, this wall must come down!")

Anyway, Nunu also said this:

The [Haniyeh] government considers that ending the occupation and lifting the siege are the keys to bringing about stability and arriving at a just peace in the region that will return to our people their legitimate rights...

Th Palestinian government appreciates the efforts the Egypt is making in more than one matter, especially regarding the issues of the [Palestinian] national dialogue and the tahdi'eh, and the efforts to bring about security and stability in the region.

On a related note, I've found a possible source for the mysterious Haaretz report I blogged about earlier today, which said this:

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.

What I have found is this report on the close-to-Hamas PIC website. It's datelined Damascus, and is their report of the same Meshaal press conference the Hayat team was reporting on (which was also attended by Ahmed Jibril.)

The PIC report says this:

[Meshaal] denied accepting a two-state solution during an interview with the American press [most likely the recent NYT interview], adding that he said that Hamas accepted the establishment of a fully sovereign state on the 1967 occupied lands with Jerusalem as its capital after dismantling all settlements and endorsing the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

This is slightly (but still significantly) different from what Haaretz reported.

My understanding of Meshaal's present position is that he accepts the Palestinian state on all the Palestinian land that was occupied by Israel in 1967. But he has not yet said whether he considers that that is the end of the Palestinian state's territorial claims. That is the sense in which he has not yet accepted a two-state solution. At this point, though, I don't think he has ruled it out.

Obviously, this needs to be further clarified.