Opinion Editorials, September 2010

Haniya Backs Abbas on Not Recognizing Israel as a Jewish State, Praise Syria

Haniya backs PA on refusal to say 'Jewish state'

Published yesterday (updated) 25/09/2010 11:54

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) --

Gaza government Prime Minister Ismail Haniya on Friday said he would reject any US or European demand that Palestine recognize Israel as a Jewish state (as did President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority before).

During a speech given in a mosque west of Gaza City during the Friday prayer, Haniya said that Israel's demand for recognition as a Jewish state threatened the right of Palestinian refugees to return.

While Israel has made several demands of Palestinians that the wording of a Jewish state be adopted, the US and Europe have not called for a change in terminology.

Israel's deputy foreign minister took issue with donor countries and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, after all parties refused to agree to a new wording for a summary document from the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, where Israel demanded the words "two states for two peoples" be added.

Haniya said the Gaza government would continue its campaign against those collaborating with Israeli intelligence services. Praising the efforts of his security forces, he called on Palestinians to be more careful.

Over the summer, the interior ministry held a national campaign offering amnesty to Palestinian agents in Gaza working with Israeli intelligence who surrendered between 8 May and 10 July. The government said confessed collaborators would face no penalty and would be guaranteed privacy and secrecy.

On Thursday, a military court sentenced a man to death for collaboration, following a mass arrest of suspected collaborators.

Haniya also called on the international community, the Arab League and the Islamic Conference Organization to take Israeli leaders to international courts following the release of a report Wednesday on Israel’s raid of an aid flotilla.

In its first report, the UN-mandated committee charged with investigating the Israeli attack on an aid boat bringing supplies to the Strip called the incident a violation of international law. Israeli forces killed nine passengers during the attack on 31 May.

Haniya praises Syrian role in Palestine issue

Published yesterday (updated) 24/09/2010 16:57

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) --

Receiving a Syrian delegation in Gaza City, Hamas government Prime Minster Ismail Haniya said the "good faith of Damascus" had done much to maintain the integrity of the Palestinian national project.

Made up of Syrian parliamentary leaders and members of the state teachers union, the delegation sat with Haniya on Thursday. The Hamas leader called the meeting "a historical gathering of Syrians and Palestinians on this liberated patch of earth."

Haniya praised the constant role of the Syrian government and its leader Bashar Al-Asad, and the Syrian support of Palestinian resistance.

The Hamas chief said Syria had shown that good faith was an integral component in triumphing against "weapons and war machines," pointing specifically to Israel and the United States.

Syria had taken "principled and strong stances" on the Palestinian issue, and affirmed the Palestinian stance on maintaining the resistance to the "Israeli and American projects," to the siege and to "Israel's offensive on Gaza," he said.

Haniya added that he expected Syria to continue supporting the resistance, despite efforts by the Americans, which he called "US gambling on a Syrian flop in its support of the Palestinian and Iraqi causes."

Just as Palestinians remain constant in their call for the liberation of Palestine, Haniya said, they have also remained constant in their call for the liberation of the Golan Heights and Southern Lebanon.

"We take comfort in the Syrian position, knowing as you do that a just peace is in restoring full rights of the people, and will never be won at the cost of the people," he concluded.

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editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org