In an interview posted on Medium, Tom Rayner of Sky News speaks with Khaled Meshaal, the political director of the Palestinian movement Hamas, about rising violence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, this summer’s Israeli war on Gaza, and the prospects of a political resolution:
In recent months there has been rising anger and violence in Jerusalem, centred largely around tensions over the Al Aqsa mosque — is this violence something that you welcome, or that worries you?
For every action there’s a reaction. The action of the occupation targeting the Islamic and the Christian Holy sites, in Jerusalem and Palestine, and specifically the Al Aqsa Mosque, brings about the angry Palestinian reaction. Netanyahu is playing with fire when he allows members of his government, the Knesset, and the extremists to repeatedly storm the Al Aqsa mosque – that’s dangerous. Our fight, is a national fight, but Netanyahu is turning it into a religious fight. He bears responsibility for the consequences of what is happening.
You talk about a religious conflict, did the attack in the synagogue, which left four Israelis and a police officer dead, not suggest that is being acted upon as well by Palestinians — and do you condemn that attack, like President Abbas did?
We can’t take events out of context. I told you, for every action there is a reaction. Netanyahu is playing with fire and he will bear the consequences of that. This is one of the rare occasions when a synagogue was targeted — why? Because there is anger, extreme anger. The Aqsa mosque is for the Muslims. The Muslims were blocked from praying there. The soldiers and the police and the right-wing extremists were allowed to storm in with their shoes, into the sanctuary of the Mosque — this is playing with fire. Netanyahu is responsible for the killing of the Israelis first, and the Palestinian deaths that followed, because of what is being committed against our people and for them not having hope on the horizon for a just settlement of the Palestinian cause.
The attacks that have taken place recently in Jerusalem appear to be taking place without any real leadership, unlike previous intifadas, do you think that these actions — which you say are the result of anger and feelings of resentment in East Jerusalem in particular — make the situation in East Jerusalem better or worse for people there?
The Palestinian people no longer have anything to lose. In light of the continuation of the occupation and settlements, stealing the land, the attacks on women and children, and the Holy sites. This is spontaneous. The reaction is spontaneous — from the young Palestinian men and young Palestinian women. And it gives two messages.
The first message is that the Israeli stubbornness, combined with the international impotence in solving the Palestinian issue with a just solution, enabling the Palestinian people their self-determination, and getting rid of occupation and building an independent state — this will lead to chaos in the region, not just in the Palestinian arena, but an open conflict — a blood bath. We warn against keeping the Palestinian issue with no solution and stripping the Palestinian people of hope.
The second message is this: those who were betting on the security option for stopping the resistance, and hunting its leadership, and blocking weapons coming to its fighters, and the security cooperation of the Palestinian Authority and the Israelis, with regional and international cooperation — all of this has proven to be useless, because when the public anger reaches its limit, it explodes on its own, and expresses itself in ways that surprises everyone.
So you are criticising the security cooperation that exists with the Palestinian Authority and the Israelis, you are suggesting that the attacks that have taken place shouldn’t be condemned — it sounds like you have lost confidence entirely in President Abbas to lead the Palestinian cause….
Our observations and our estimations, when it comes to the Palestinian leadership’s decisions are discussed in dialogue on the Palestinian-to-Palestinian level, and I don’t want to get into it in the press. I think any Palestinian leader who concentrates on this now is not serving any interest. Let us discuss our internal issues our way, in our own Palestinian sphere. We stand up together in our battle against the occupation, that’s from one point of view.
But from another point of view, yes, the Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation is unacceptable, to the public and on the national level, especially in light of what the Israeli occupation is doing through its continued acts of aggression. In light of the dead-end on the political horizon, there has to be a change in the instruments used by the Palestinians — the path of negotiation has been proven to be a failure. For a quarter of a century, negotiations — Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli negotiations — have proven to be useless.
There has to be a change of strategy, and adoption of a programme of national Palestinian struggle with various facets on the ground level, political level, diplomatic level, legal level, media level, public level — and the resistance, with all its aspects, including armed resistance, because the Israeli occupation as it is, like all occupations in history, won’t withdraw from occupied lands, except under pressure, they do not withdraw voluntarily. The Israeli behaviour is giving us this clear message.
But the commitment of Hamas to armed resistance doesn’t seem to fit with the reconciliation deal that was done with Fatah — the establishment of a national unity government under President Abbas, who has signed up to the Quartet Principles which stipulate non-violence. Does this reconciliation deal still stand? It feels like it has fallen apart because you are coming from such a different position to the President….
Reconciliation is a national necessity, and we must hold onto it. We in Hamas are committed to it. There are hurdles in front of the reconciliation and there are stumbles along the way. We have to solve it and remove these hurdles. When it concerns resistance, this is not alien to the Palestinian psyche, or the Palestinian history, and all the elements of the resistance are there because of the continuation of the occupation and settlements and aggression and arrests, and breaking the sanctuary of the holy sites, as I said before.
What we agreed on in the reconciliation, years ago, whether in Cairo or Doha, and also in the national reconciliation document in 2006 — it talks about the right of the people to resistance, therefore officially Fatah has committed itself to resistance. Hamas is committed to resistance. All the factions are the same, nobody rejects resistance. Maybe some statements by people in charge and leaders talk about something else, but they take responsibility for this. We never agreed, at any stage in the process of reconciliation, to abandon resistance, because this is rejected on a national level.
But we do ask for finding a common strategy on how resistance should be run, when to use this form of resistance, and when to use another form of resistance. Yes, this is accepted, in fact required and Hamas is ready for coordination and in drawing up a strategy for the struggle together in coordination with our brothers in Fatah and with the Palestinian Authority leadership.
