In an interview with the Associated Press, a senior Hamas leader, Khalil al-Hayya, said the Islamist Palestinian movement is ready to disband its armed wing – if Palestine becomes an independent and sovereign state.
He says Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by rival Fatah and composed mainly of socialist and nationalist parties and groups, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank.
But crushing militant resistance requires “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions” from 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza.
– All the experiences of people who fought against occupiers, when they became independent and obtained their rights and their state, what have these forces done? They have turned into political parties and their defending fighting forces have turned into the national army, he continued.
The official Hamas document says it “rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” – the area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes Israel. In recent statements, however, it has modified its position and seems increasingly open to a two-state solution.
Netanyahu likely to say no
Despite the widespread destruction of Gaza and tens of thousands of casualties, al-Hayya claims that Israel has failed to defeat “have not destroyed more than 20% of [Hamas’] capabilities, neither human nor in the field” – a statement that many observers have questioned.
– If they cannot end Hamas, what is the solution? The solution is consensus. Let’s say they destroy Hamas. Will the Palestinian people be gone? he wonders.
That Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and its partners in the Jewish Power and Religious Zionist parties would be interested in such a two-state solution is considered highly unlikely. Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, and a number of Israeli officials have also opened the door to relocating the Palestinian people to Egypt or other countries.
Another complicating factor is believed to be the complicated relationship between Hamas and Fatah, the latter having been expelled from Gaza in 2007, the year after Hamas won elections the previous year. Hundreds of people were also killed in the internal fighting, with a number of attacks and assassination attempts targeting leaders of both factions.
Today, observers tend to say, somewhat simplistically, that Hamas controls Gaza – while Fatah controls the West Bank.
