(Reuters) – Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said the de facto recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state won by his rival Mahmoud Abbas should be seen alongside Gaza’s latest conflict with Israel as a single, bold strategy that could empower all Palestinians.
Meshaal said the short war which claimed 162 Palestinian lives and five Israelis was concluded on terms set by his Islamist movement and ended its isolation, creating a new mood conducive to reconciliation with Abbas’s nationalist Fatah.
In an interview with Reuters in Doha, he compared Israel’s mood of dejection with the jubilation of Palestinians in Gaza and across the Israeli-occupied West Bank led by Abbas, insisting that “for the first time a ceasefire was achieved on conditions set by Hamas, and in the presence of the Americans”.
Meshaal strongly backed the diplomatic initiative by Palestinian Authority President Abbas to upgrade Palestinian status at the United Nations to observer state which the General assembly endorsed on Thursday in New York.
Diplomatically, this puts the stateless Palestinians on a par with the Holy See, but politically it would help “unify Palestinian national efforts” as part of the reconciliation process with Abbas’s nationalist Fatah movement, Meshaal said.
“I told Abou Mazen (Abbas) we want this move to be part of a national Palestinian strategy” that includes “the (armed) resistance which excelled in Gaza and gave an example of the ability of the Palestinian people to resist and steadfastly confront the occupier”, a confident Meshaal said.
The coming to power of Hamas allies in the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which played the key role in brokering the recent ceasefire, and “the defeat of the enemy in Gaza” have created a new environment that should allow Palestinians to form a unity government.
“I am optimistic”, Meshaal said, “there is a new mood that allows us to achieve reconciliation”. Dressed in a black suit and an open neck shirt, he was speaking at a hotel in Doha, where he has lived since leaving Syria earlier this year.
Reuters has the full article
