[News] Hamas leader Khaled Meshal interview

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Exclusive: Hamas leader interview

<http://www.newstatesman.com/print/200909170013#>Ken Livingstone
http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2009/09/israel-palestinian-hamas

Published 17 September 2009

In a world exclusive, Ken Livingstone discusses 
religion, violence and the chances for peace with 
the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal
[]


The key to peace in the Middle East is 
restoration of international law and the 
recognition of the right of both Palestinians and 
Israeli Jews to live in peace and security side 
by side. As President Obama says, there is no 
peace process today. Israel's prime minister, 
Binyamin Netanyahu, continues to extend illegal 
settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem 
and maintain a near-complete blockade of Gaza. 
Palestinians fire ineffectual rockets into 
Israel. Israel regularly attacks Palestinian territories with modern weapons.

No major conflict can be resolved without each 
side talking to the other. That was the case in 
South Africa, Ireland and countless other 
situations where people said they would never 
talk to their opponents. I was vilified in the 
Eighties for saying that, to resolve the Irish 
conflict, you had to talk to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

In the Middle East, peace can only be achieved 
through discussion between the elected 
representatives of both the Israelis and the 
Palestinians - and that means Hamas, which won a 
big majority in the last Palestinian 
parliamentary election, as well as Fatah. This 
does not mean that I agree with the views of 
Hamas, Fatah or the government of Israel. Far 
from it: I do not. For example, I think a number 
of passages in the original Hamas charter are 
unacceptable and should be repudiated. Many 
observers believe that this is also the view of some in Hamas.

Yet, for too many people, Hamas as an 
organisation remains opaque. What they know about 
it is derived from a hostile media; it has no 
face. Most would probably think its leader is 
some disturbed Osama Bin Laden figure. In fact, 
al-Qaeda's supporters in Gaza are so hostile to 
Hamas that they have declared war on it.

For these reasons, I thought it important to 
interview the de facto leader of Hamas, Khaled 
Meshal, who lives in exile in Syria. Not every 
issue is clear. But at the beginning of any peace 
process, what matters most is engagement. 
Dialogue is necessary to get to clarity and 
mutual understanding. Sinn Fein did not answer 
every question at the beginning and neither does 
Binyamin Netanyahu today. The answers from Meshal 
come at a time of heightened tensions and renewed 
death threats against him, adding to the 
permanent danger of assassination bids not only 
by the Israelis, but also al-Qaeda supporters in the region.

I hope this interview will help to make the case 
for the dialogue that is needed, which I believe 
is inevitable. It is simply a question of how 
much suffering there will be, on both sides, before we get there.

Ken Livingstone: Could you explain a little about 
your childhood and the experiences that shaped 
your development into the person you are today?

Khaled Meshal: I was born in the West Bank 
village of Silwad near Ramallah in 1956. In my 
early age, I learned from my father how he was 
part of the Palestinian revolution against the 
British mandate in Palestine in the Thirties and 
how he fought, alongside other Palestinians using 
primitive weapons, against the well-equipped and 
trained Zionist gangs attacking Palestinian villages in 1948.

I lived in Silwad for 11 years until the 1967 
war, when I was forced with my family, like 
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, to leave 
home and settle in Jordan. That was a shocking experience I will never forget.

KL: What happened to you after the war?

KM: Soon afterwards, I left Jordan for Kuwait, 
where my father had already been working and 
living since before 1967. After completing my 
primary education in 1970, I joined the 
prestigious Abdullah al-Salim Secondary School. 
In the early Seventies, it was a hub of intense 
political and ideological activity.

During my second year at al-Salim school, I 
joined the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan 
al-Muslimun). Upon finishing my fourth year 
successfully I secured admission to Kuwait 
University, where I studied for a BSc degree in physics.

Kuwait University had an active branch of the 
General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), 
which had been under the absolute control of the 
Fatah movement. I and my fellow Islamists 
decided, in 1977, to join GUPS, which we had 
previously shunned, and contest its leadership 
election. However, working from within GUPS 
proved impossible; we felt constantly impeded and 
realised we Islamists would never be given a 
chance. By 1980, two years after I graduated, my 
juniors decided to leave GUPS and form their own 
Palestinian association on campus.

Many of the students had become disillusioned 
with the Palestinian leadership, who seemed 
intent on settling for much less than what they
had grown up dreaming of, namely the complete 
liberation of Palestine and the return of all the refugees to their homes.

KL: What is the situation in Gaza today?

KM: Gaza today is under siege. Crossings are 
closed most of the time and for months victims of 
the Israeli war on Gaza have been denied ­access 
to construction materials to rebuild their 
destroyed homes. Schools, hospitals and homes in 
many parts of the Gaza Strip are in need of 
rebuilding. Tens of thousands of people remain 
homeless. As winter approaches, the conditions of 
these victims will only get worse in the cold and 
rain. One and a half million people are held 
hostage in one of the biggest prisons in the 
history of humanity. They are unable to travel 
freely out of the Strip, whether for medical 
treatment, for education or for other needs. What 
we have in Gaza is a disaster and a crime against 
humanity perpetrated by the Israelis. The world 
community, through its silence and indifference, colludes in this crime.

KL: Why do you think Israel is still imposing the siege on Gaza?

KM: The Israelis claim that the siege is for 
security reasons. The real intention is to 
pressure Hamas by punishing the entire 
population. The sanctions were put in place soon 
after Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 
January 2006. While security is one of their 
concerns, it is not the main motivation. The 
primary objective is to provoke a coup against 
the results of the democratic elections that 
brought Hamas to power. The Israelis and their 
allies seek to impose failure on Hamas by 
persecuting the people. This is a hideous and 
immoral endeavour. Today, the siege continues 
despite the fact that we have, for the past six 
months, observed a ceasefire. Last year, a truce 
was observed from June to December 2008. Yet the 
siege was never lifted, and the sanctions 
remained in place. Undermining Hamas is the main 
objective of the siege. The Israelis hope to turn 
the people of Gaza against Hamas by increasing 
the suffering of the entire population of the Strip.

KL: How many supporters of Hamas and elected 
representatives of Hamas are there in prison in 
Israel? Have they all been charged and convicted of crimes?

KM: Out of a total of 12,000 Palestinian captives 
in Israeli detention, around 4,000 are Hamas 
members. These include scores of ministers and 
parliamentarians (Palestinian Legislative Council 
members). Around ten have recently been released, 
but about 40 PLC members remain in detention. 
Some have been given sentences, but many are held 
in what the Israelis call administrative 
detention. The only crime these people are 
accused of is their association with Hamas's 
parliamentary group. Exercising one's democratic 
right is considered a crime by Israel. All these 
Palestinians are brought before an Israeli system 
of justice that has nothing to do with justice. 
The Israeli judiciary is an instrument of the 
occupation. In Israel, there are two systems of 
justice: one applies to Israelis and another 
applies to the Palestinians. This is an apartheid regime.

KL: What part, if any, do other states and 
insti­tutions, such as the US, the EU, Britain, 
Egypt, or the Palestinian Authority, play in the blockade of Gaza?

KM: The blockade of Gaza would never have 
succeeded had it not been for the collusion of 
regional and international powers.

KL: How do you think the blockade can be lifted?

KM: In order for the blockade to be lifted, the 
rule of international law must be respected. The 
basic human rights of the Palestinians and their 
right to live in dignity and free from 
persecution would have to be acknowledged. There 
has to be an international will to serve justice 
and uphold the basic principles of international 
human rights law. The international community 
would have to free itself from the shackles of 
Israeli pressure, speak the truth and act accordingly.

KL: Israel says that the bombing and invasion of 
Gaza last year was in response to repeated 
breaking of the ceasefire by Hamas and the firing 
of rockets into southern Israel. Is this the case?

KM: The Israelis are not telling the truth. We 
­entered into a truce deal with Israel from 19 
June to 19 December 2008. Yet the blockade was 
not lifted. The deal entailed a bilateral 
ceasefire, lifting the blockade and opening the 
crossings. We fully abided by the ceasefire while 
Israel only partially observed it, and towards 
the end of the term it resumed hostilities. 
Throughout that ­period, Israel maintained the 
siege and only intermittently opened some of the 
crossings, ­allowing no more than 10 per cent of 
the basic needs of the Gazan population to get through.
Israel killed the potential for renewing the 
truce because it deliberately and repeatedly violated it.

I have always informed my western visitors, 
including the former US president Jimmy Carter, 
that the moment Hamas is offered a truce that
includes lifting the blockade and opening the 
crossings, Hamas will adopt a positive stance. So 
far, no one has made us any such offer. As far as 
we are concerned, the blockade amounts to a 
declaration of war that warrants self-defence.

KL: What are the ideology and goals of Hamas?

KM: Our people have been the victims of a 
colonial project called Israel. For years, we 
have suffered various forms of repression. Half 
of our people have been dispossessed and are 
denied the right to return to their homes, and 
half live under an occupation regime that 
violates their basic human rights. Hamas 
struggles for an end to occupation and for the 
restoration of our people's rights, including their right to return home.

KL: What is your view of the cause of the 
conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinians?

KM: The conflict is the outcome of aggression and 
occupation. Our struggle against the Israelis is 
not because they are Jewish, but because they 
invaded our homeland and dispossessed us. We do 
not accept that because the Jews were once 
persecuted in Europe they have the right to take 
our land and throw us out. The injustices 
suffered by the Jews in Europe were horrible and 
criminal, but were not perpetrated by the 
Palestinians or the Arabs or the Muslims. So, why 
should we be punished for the sins of others or 
be made to pay for their crimes?

KL: Do you believe that Israel intends to continue to expand its borders?

KM: Israel does not, officially, have stated 
borders. When Israel was created in our homeland 
62 years ago, its founders dreamed of a "Greater 
Israel" that extended from the Nile to the 
Euphrates. Expansionism manifested itself on 
different occasions: in 1956, in 1967 and later 
on in the occupation of parts of Lebanon in the 
Eighties. Arab weakness, Israeli military 
superiority, the support given to Israel by the 
western powers, and the massacres it was prepared 
to commit against unarmed civilians in Palestine, 
Egypt and Lebanon, enabled it to expand from time 
to time. Although expansionism still lurks in the 
minds of many Israelis, it would seem that this 
is no longer a practical option. Lebanese and 
Palestinian resistance has forced Israel to 
withdraw unilaterally from lands it had 
previously occupied through war and aggression. 
While in the past Israel was able to defeat 
several Arab armies, today it faces formidable 
resistance that will not only check its 
expansionism but also, in time, force it to 
relinquish more of the land that it illegally occupies.

KL: What are your principal goals? Is Hamas 
primarily a political or a religious organisation?

KM: Hamas is a national liberation movement. We 
do not see a contradiction between our Islamic 
identity and our political mission. While we 
engage the occupiers through resistance and 
struggle to achieve our people's rights, we are 
proud of our religious identity that derives from 
Islam. Unlike the experience of the Europeans 
with Christianity, Islam does not provide for, 
demand or recognise an ecclesiastical authority. 
It simply provides a set of broad guidelines 
whose detailed interpretations are subject to and 
the product of human endeavour (ijtihad).

KL: Are you committed to the destruction of Israel?

KM: What is really happening is the destruction 
of the Palestinian people by Israel; it is the 
one that occupies our land and exiles us, kills us,
incarcerates us and persecutes our people. We are 
the victims, Israel is the oppressor, and not vice versa.

KL: Why does Hamas support military force in this conflict?

KM: Military force is an option that our people 
resort to because nothing else works. Israel's 
conduct and the collusion of the international 
community, whether through silence or 
indifference or actual embroilment, vindicate 
armed resistance. We would love to see this conflict
resolved peacefully. If occupation were to come 
to an end and our people enabled to exercise 
self-determination in their homeland, there would 
then be no need for any use of force. The reality 
is that nearly 20 years of peaceful negotiations 
between the Palestinians and the Israelis have 
not restored any of our rights. On the contrary, 
we have incurred more suffering and more losses 
as a result of the one-sided compromises made by 
the Palestinian negotiating party.

Since the PLO entered into the Oslo peace deal 
with Israel in 1993, more Palestinian land in the 
West Bank has been expropriated by the Israelis 
to build more illegal Jewish settlements, expand 
existing ones or construct highways for the 
exclusive use of Israelis living in these 
settlements. The apartheid wall that the Israelis 
erected along the West Bank has consumed large 
areas of the land that was supposed to be 
returned to the Palestinians according to the peace deal.

The apartheid wall and hundreds of checkpoints 
turned the West Bank into isolated enclaves like 
cells in a large prison, which makes
life intolerable.

Jerusalem is constantly tampered with in order to 
alter its landscape and identity, and hundreds of 
Palestinian homes have been destroyed inside the 
city and around it, making thousands of 
Palestinians homeless in their own homeland. 
Instead of releasing Palestinian prisoners, the 
Israelis have arrested an additional 5,000 
Palestinians since the Annapolis peace conference 
in 2007 - actions that testify to the fact they 
simply aren't interested in peace at all.

KL: Does Hamas engage in military activity outside Palestine?

KM: No; since its establishment 22 years ago, 
Hamas has confined its field of military operation to occupied Palestine.

KL: Do you wish to establish an Islamic state in 
Palestine in which all other religions are subordinate?

KM: Our priority as a national liberation 
movement is to end the Israeli occupation of our 
homeland. Once our people are free in their land 
and enjoy the right to self-determination, they 
alone have the final say on what system of 
governance they wish to live under. It is our 
firm belief that Islam cannot be imposed on the 
people. We shall campaign, in a fully democratic 
process, for an Islamic agenda. If that is what 
the people opt for, then that is their choice. We 
believe that Islam is the best source of guidance 
and the best guarantor for the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

KL: Does Hamas impose Islamic dress in Gaza? For 
example, is it compulsory in Gaza for women to wear the hijab, niqab or burqa?

KM: No. Intellectually, Hamas derives its vision 
from the people's culture and religion. Islam is 
our religion and is the basic constituent of our 
culture. We do not deny other Palestinians the 
right to have different visions. We do not impose 
on the people any aspects of religion or social 
conduct. Features of religion in Gaza society are 
genuine and spontaneous; they have not been 
imposed by any authority other than the faith and conviction of the observant.

KL: It is suggested that the division in the 
Palestinian people between the West Bank and Gaza 
and between Fatah and Hamas, which obviously 
weakens their position, came about because Hamas 
seized power by force in Gaza. Is this true and 
how do you explain this division?

KM: Undoubtedly, division does weaken the 
Palestinians and harms their cause. However, the 
division is caused not by Hamas, but by the 
insistence of certain international and regional 
parties on reversing the results of Palestinian 
democracy. It dismayed them that Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people.

The division is compounded by the existence of a 
Palestinian party that seeks empowerment from 
those same regional and international
parties, including the US and Israel, that wish 
to see Hamas out of the arena. Soon after its 
victory in the election of January 2006, every 
effort was exerted to undermine the ability of Hamas to govern.

When these efforts failed, General Keith Dayton, 
of the United States army, who currently serves 
as US security co-ordinator for Israel and the 
Palestinian Authority, was despatched to Gaza to 
plot a coup against the Hamas-led national unity 
government that came out of the Mecca agreement 
of 2007. The plot prompted Hamas in Gaza to act 
in self-defence in the events of June 2007. The 
claim that Hamas carried out a coup is baseless 
because Hamas was leading the democratically 
elected government. All it did was act against 
those who were plotting a coup against it under 
the command and guidance of General Dayton.

KL: Do those of other political or religious 
views such as Fatah enjoy democratic freedoms in 
Gaza? What is the situation of Hamas members in 
the West Bank territories controlled by Fatah?

KM: Some Palestinian factions have been inspired 
by Arab nationalism, others by Marxism or 
Leninism, and others by liberalism. While we 
strongly believe that these ideas are alien to 
our people and have failed to meet their 
aspirations, we insist that the people are the 
final arbiter on whom they wish to lead them and 
by which system they desire to be governed. Thus, 
democracy is our best option for settling our 
internal Palestinian differences. Whatever the 
people choose will have to be respected.

We endeavour to the best of our ability to 
protect the human rights and civil liberties of 
the affiliates of Fatah and all the other 
factions within the Gaza Strip. In contrast, the 
Palestinians in the West Bank under Israeli 
occupation and the Palestinian Authority in 
Ramallah continue to be denied their basic 
rights. General Dayton is in the West Bank 
supervising the ­severe and brutal crackdown on 
Hamas and other Palestinian groups. More than 
1,000 political prisoners, including students, 
university professors and professionals in all 
fields are hunted down, detained and tortured, 
sometimes to death, by the US-, British- and 
EU-trained and -sponsored Palestinian Authority's security force.

KL: Do you believe it is possible to reunite the 
Palestinian people? If so, how do you think this 
could be done and within what kind of timescale?

KM: It is possible to reunite the Palestinians. 
In order for this to happen two things are 
needed. First, foreign interventions and demands 
must stop. The Palestinian people should be left 
to deal with their own differences without 
external pressure. Second, all Palestinian 
parties must respect the rules of the democratic 
game and submit to the results of its process.

KL: Hamas's refusal to recognise Israel is 
frequently cited as an insuperable obstacle to 
negotiations and a peace settlement.

KM: This issue is only used as a pretext. Israel 
does not recognise the rights of the Palestinian 
people, yet this is not raised as an obstacle to
Israel being internationally recognised nor to it 
being allowed to take part in talks. The reality 
is that Israel is the one that occupies the land 
and possesses superior power. Rather than ask the 
Palestinians, who are the victims, it is Israel, 
who is the oppressor, who should be asked to 
recognise the rights of the Palestinians.

In the past, Yasser Arafat recognised Israel but 
failed to achieve much. Today, Mahmoud Abbas 
recognises Israel, but we have yet to see any of 
the promised dividends of the peace process.

Israel concedes only under pressure. In the 
absence of any tangible pressure on Israel by the 
Arabs or by the international community, no settlement will succeed.

KL: Do you have a "road map" of interim steps 
which could realistically lead to a peaceful 
settlement of the conflict? Do you think Jews, 
Muslims and Christians can one day live together in peace in the Holy Land?

KM: We do, in Hamas, believe that a realistic 
peaceful settlement to the conflict will have to 
begin with a ceasefire agreement between the two 
sides based on a full withdrawal of Israel from 
all the territories occupied in 1967. Israeli 
intransigence and the lack of will to act on the 
part of the international community are what 
­impede this settlement. We believe that only 
once our people are free and back in their land 
will they be able to determine the future of the conflict.

It should be reiterated here that we do not 
resist the Israelis because they are Jews. As a 
matter of principle, we do not have problems with 
the Jews or the Christians, but do have a problem 
with those who attack us and oppress us. For many 
centuries, Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted 
peacefully in this part of the world. Our society 
never witnessed the sort of racism and genocide 
that Europe saw until recently against "the 
other". These issues started in Eur­ope. 
Colonialism was imposed on this region by Europe, 
and Israel was the product of the oppression of 
the Jews in Europe and not of any such problem that existed in the Muslim land.

KL: What role do you think that other countries 
and organisations, in particular the US, EU and 
Britain, are currently playing in the Israel/ 
Palestine conflict and the divisions between the Palestinians?

KM: The role played by all these has thus far 
been negative. The attitude towards Israeli 
crimes against our people has been either silence 
or collusion. The policies and positions adopted 
by these parties have contributed to the 
Palestinian division or augmented it. On the one 
hand, conditions are stipulated that have the 
effect of torpedoing unity talks and 
reconciliation efforts. On the other hand, some 
of these international parties are directly 
embroiled in suppressing our people in the West 
Bank. The US and the EU provide funding, training 
and guidance to build a Palestinian security 
apparatus specialised in the persecution of 
critics of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

We have particularly been concerned about reports 
that the British government, directly as well as 
indirectly by means of security firms and the 
services of retired army, police and 
in­telligence officers, is fully involved in the 
programme led by General Dayton against Hamas in the West Bank.

KL: What should countries such as the US and 
Britain do to assist a peaceful settlement?

KM: They should simply uphold international law - 
the occupation is illegal, the annexation of East 
Jerusalem is illegal, the settlements are 
illegal, the apartheid wall is illegal, and the 
siege of Gaza is illegal. Yet nothing is done.

KL: What relations does Hamas wish to have with 
the rest of the world, and, for example, with Britain?

KM: Hamas defends a just cause. For this purpose, 
it desires to open up to the world. The movement 
seeks to establish good relations and to conduct 
constructive dialogue with all those concerned with Palestine.




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