Israel Matzav

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Dreams of Map that Does Not Include Israel

Al-Zahar said that the new government would reconsider previous deals with Israel, but quickly added that all the agreements reached in the past had been later destroyed by the Jewish state. "Do you want us to repeat the same experience?" he asked.

Al-Zahar also stressed that Hamas opposed holding negotiations with Israel.

"Israel wants to negotiate only for the sake of negotiations, but on the ground, it expands settlements and continues building the separation fence on the Palestinian territories," he said, adding that Israel had negotiated with the Palestinians and the Arab world in the past but all the agreements resulted in were undermined by the Jewish state.

"Israel doesn't want peace and nor does it have any peace project. Therefore, we should not cheat our people and tell them that there will be negotiations," he concluded.

But al-Zahar reiterated that it was possible that Hamas and its cabinet accepted a temporary two-state solution to the conflict with Israel, but voiced doubts over whether Israel really wanted to see the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

"I want to ask, 'Does Israel believe in the idea of two states?'" he said. "Israel is deceiving the international community and it actually wants only a Jewish state and it just hopes to see the Palestinians have an autonomous regime."

The senior official also defended Hamas' ultimate goal of destroying Israel and founding an Islamic state.

"I dreams of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it," he said. "I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel)."

"This dream will become real one day. I'm certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land," said al-Zahar.

However, he didn't rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state, adding that the Palestinians never hated the Jews and that only the Israeli occupation was their enemy. [Anyone want to live as a dhimmi? CiJ]

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:17 PM