THE HANDSTAND |
AUGUST-OCTOBER2009
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Exclusive:
Hamas Leader Interview
By Ken Livingstone
September 22, 2009 "New Statesman" -- September 17, 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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