The Final Hour: Hamas would accept peace with Israel

A top Hamas official in the West Bank said his hard-line group would accept a peace deal between the Palestinian Authority and Israel should it win approval in a national referendum.

Palestinian Authority President Mahoud Abbas has promised to bring any agreement with Israel to a referendum that would include the Palestinian diaspora.

Yousef’s words mark a departure for Hamas, which in the past has rejected any deal with Israel and has refused even to recognize the state. However, Yousef said there could be peace if Israel withdraws to the 1967 lines, which Hamas leaders in the past have said they would accept.

“If Israel will accept the rights of our nation and allow the establishment of the Palestinian state with full sovereignty like any other people, in my estimation it is possible there will be peace. However, so far Israel ignores the rights of the Palestinian nation. Hamas agrees to the idea of creating a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with full sovereignty. The occupation forces must leave our lands they occupied in 1967,” he said.

Speaking from his Ramallah office, Yousef said that Hamas would be willing to abandon terror attacks against Israel should the two sides agree on a cease-fire.

“The movement [Hamas] is prepared to sign a hudna [temporary cease-fire] agreement with the occupying Israeli power, for a period of time agreed upon by the two sides,” he said.

According to Yousef, who was released from Israeli prison two months ago, the Palestinian nation is not interested in further suffering.

Before an agreement with Israel is reached, though, internal Palestinian reconciliation must be first completed, Yousef said, noting that the PA jails currently hold approximately 150 Hamas members.

He said that Hamas, in an about-face, is ready to call elections immediately, thereby ending its rift with the competing Fatah movement.

The main point of contention between Hamas and Fatah has been around this issue, with Fatah demanding elections within three months and Hamas insisting they be postponed indefinitely.

“I am ready for general, immediate elections,” Yousef said. However, he stressed, they must be “in a suitable atmosphere. That is to say, if the Palestinian Authority will release political prisoners, Hamas offices will be opened, the PA Parliament will return to normal operation and Hamas be given the permits to hold rallies and meetings. I repeat: Hamas will accept the results of the elections, including on Gaza – if they will be with reconciliation, of course.”

Ten years after the assassination of movement leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Israel still has not internalized the lesson from its actions, Yousef said. “Hamas has grown stronger since Yassin was assassinated, not the opposite. The movement exists and acts and can’t be ignored.”

Yousef is perhaps most well-known as the father of Mosab Hassan Yousef, a Hamas defector who turned against the organization and converted to Christianity, going public about his experiences in a book and as the subject of the recent film “The Green Prince.”

The Final Hour

Hamas would accept peace with Israel

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