Hamas and Israel: We Must Insist on First Things First By Essa bin Mohammed Al-Zedjali

Hamas and Israel: We Must Insist on First Things First

By Essa bin Mohammed Al-Zedjali

Arab News, May 29, 2006

Let me start posing a question to the United Nations: Which is the occupying country, Palestine or Israel?

It is imperative that Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories before Palestine being declared an independent state existing side by side with the Zionist state. Then and only then would Palestine be able to recognize Israel. But everybody knows the intention of Israel: It will never pull out from the Palestinian lands.

The UN Security Council has issued a number of resolutions in the past condemning Israeli terrorism. But unfortunately, all those resolutions remain just on paper. On Dec. 11, 1948, the UN Security Council issued a resolution on the status of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) which supported the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland in a way that would have led to lasting peace in Palestine.

Resolution No. 271/1996 condemned the Israeli practices with regard to Al-Aqsa Mosque and called for a halt to all operations that could change the status of Al-Quds. Resolution No. 452 issued on June 25, 1979 demanded that Israel stop all settlement activities in the occupied Arab lands, including Al-Quds. Many more resolutions followed, but all of them turned out to be just futile exercises.

Nonadherence by Israel to the UN Security Council resolutions amounts to a clear challenge to the international community’s attempts to bring peace in Palestine. Flouting of the resolutions by Israel shows that Israel is intent on continuing the violence and mayhem it has unleashed in the occupied territories. Despite all this, the US administration and some EU countries are trying to force Hamas to recognize Israel without any reservations.

What is the basis or what is the reason behind the decision of the US and the EU to exert pressure on the Hamas movement to recognize Israel? Israel is never asked to comply with the UN resolutions. How could Hamas recognize Israel when Israel does not recognize the rights of the Palestinians on their own territories? Israel has thrown to the winds all international resolutions without any hesitation.

Is it Israel that occupied the Palestinian lands or is it the other way round? The US administration twists facts, as usual, to affirm Israel’s right to exist in the occupied Arab lands. An honest analysis of history would definitely confirm that Israel has absolutely no rights in the Palestinian lands and it is an occupier in every sense of the word.

The US demand for the recognition of Israel by Hamas is strange as is its total and blind support to Israel, which is considered by many as its pampered child.

The US House of Representatives has recently passed a bill imposing stringent restrictions on the Palestinian government. The bill, which also bans the US administration from providing financial aid to the Palestinian government directly or indirectly, comes as a shock and shows total bias toward Israel.

Has Israel ever complied with any or even a part of the many UN resolutions issued against it? None of these resolutions was implemented.

The reality is that these resolutions are rotting in the UN archives. And any future resolutions against Israel would meet with the same fate as long as the US remains a veto-wielding power. Recognition of Israel only after Palestinian independence. What do you think?

— Essa bin Mohammed Al-Zedjali is editor in chief of The Times of Oman.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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