Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Khaled Meshaal to the New York Times

Khaled Meshaal has given an interview to the NYT.

I'm on the record saying Israel should talk to Hamas, if they can find anything to talk about. Moreover, if Hamas ceases to be Hamas and is willing to make peace with Israel on terms Israel can live with, great. I'm all for it. The positions in this interview don't sound like them, however:
He repeated that he would not recognize Israel, saying to fellow Arab
leaders, “There is only one enemy in the region, and that is Israel.”

But he urged outsiders to ignore the Hamas charter, which calls for the
obliteration of Israel through jihad and cites as fact the infamous anti-Semitic
forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Mr. Meshal did not offer to revoke the
charter, but said it was 20 years old, adding, “We are shaped by our
experiences.” On the two-state solution sought by the Americans, he said:
“We are with a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This
includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return
of the Palestinian refugees.” Asked what “long-term” meant, he said 10
years.

Regular readers will be able to read his codes without my help.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The codes you mention are easily deciphered by people who follow the details of Middle East politics, but unfortunately, the New York Times and their MSM brethren can't, or won't, decode them.

"Long term truce" = hudna. A period that permits rearming for another religiously mandated war later. There is no peace to be had with infidels; just temporary truces, and no land can be ceded that was once under Muslim rule.

"Saudi peace initiative" = an attempt to create two Palestinian states in place of Israel. First, the territories beyond the green line are designated "Palestine", then Israel proper is eliminated by allowing all self-declared Palestinians, descendants, etc., to resettle inside Israel via a "right of return".

I invite others to add their own definitions. I think a handy dictionary of Palestinian doublespeak would be useful.

Anonymous said...

I read the whole thing as a bait to get the stupids into believing negotiating with them were possible, if only those Israelis were a wee bit more flexible.
Unfortunately such camouflaged lies tend to be rather long lived because as Christopher Hill said in an interview "Diplomats like to negotiate" plain and simple and an opening like this one by Meshaal gives them a nice pretext to do what they like best and if it is humiliating for Israelis that they have to play along this charade well too bad for them.
rgds,
Silke
PS: if I keep thinking like that maybe I should start nicknaming myself Cassandra

Anonymous said...

I read that in their site. The writing seemed naive about the meaning of his words (which neither Ethan Bronner nor el-Khodary can be) but when he says "10 years" anybody who knows even nothing about it could decode that a ten year truce does not mean an intention of peace. I mean, wouldn't that stop an ignorant reader in his tracks? "What does that mean? Ten year truce? What don't I understand?"

And the Hillary quote was great. When his “is a language that reflects the [same] old... policies.”

Michael Kania said...

You want Israel to talk with Hamas? – I understand that you are tired of the incredible situation you are living in, but I am convinced – after what happened during the last century – that they will not let any others keep staying on that ground. I think the only solution is hard to stay in the conviction and the belief that Israel fulfilled prophecy is just. It would only have much more substantial work to conviction in the sense of a rational pervaded by mysticism, based on an understanding could be crystallized by the spirit of Torah, where the lines to the other two cultures, Christianity and Islam, which emerged from the Torah are appear again ...