Many people in the West do not know or chose not to know how the state of Israel was formed. They also do not know what the Palestinians are fighting for. For these people I reproduce a statement by Hamas that appeared in the Guardian in 2006
" Our message to the Israelis is this. We do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony. They are in our religion- the people of the book - who have a covenant with God and His messenger Muhammad to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us- our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force,destroyed our society and banished our people. We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our religious right. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept a long term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the term. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice"
The Palestinians are a dispossessed people whose land has been given away by the European to the Jews. There is no question of the right of Israel to exist but the legitimacy of the state itself is questionable.
" Our message to the Israelis is this. We do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony. They are in our religion- the people of the book - who have a covenant with God and His messenger Muhammad to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us- our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force,destroyed our society and banished our people. We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our religious right. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept a long term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the term. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice"
The Palestinians are a dispossessed people whose land has been given away by the European to the Jews. There is no question of the right of Israel to exist but the legitimacy of the state itself is questionable.
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