Hamas interviews2002.pdf

M IDDLE E AST P OLICY , V OL . IX, N O . 4, D ECEMBER 2002

I NTERVIEWS FROM G AZA : W HAT H AMAS W ANTS

Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, Skeikh Ahmed Yassin, Ismail Abu Shanab,

Mahmoud al-Zahar

Dr. Rantisi, Mr. Abu Shanab and Dr. al-Zahar are senior officials of the

Hamas political wing in Gaza. Sheikh Yassin is the organization’s

spiritual leader. Rantisi and Zahar are medical doctors. Abu Shanab is a

U.S.-educated engineer who, like Zahar, teaches at Islamic University in

Gaza City. The following interviews were conducted by New York-based

journalist Roger Gaess during May and June 2002 in Gaza City.

ABD AL-AZIZ RANTISI

G AESS : Do you think the United States has the ability to play a positive role as the conflict

stands now?

R ANTISI : Not if you judge by the proposals of Zinni, Tenet, George Mitchell. All of them

told Mr. Arafat to crack down on Hamas, Islamic Jihad, even Fatah. So they are not

looking at the situation from the real angle. They don’t acknowledge the occupation as

the root cause of all the troubles in our area. All the time they pressure Arafat to put an

end to the resistance, but they don’t press Sharon to end his invasion of [Palestinian]

cities, and demolition of [refugee] camps, assassinations of Palestinians, killing of kids. If

the U.S. continues with this policy of putting pressure on the victims and not the aggres-

sors, there will be no solution in the foreseeable future, and both the Palestinians and

Israelis will continue in their vicious circle of violence.

Q: How can people get out of this circle? What do you want to see from the U.S.?

R ANTISI : They should be fair. Instead, they are supplying Israel with F-16 fighter jets,

Apache helicopter gunships and other weapons, and providing financial support and even

diplomatic support by way of the [U.N.] veto. They are opposing the Palestinian will

even though we aren’t the side committing aggression. We are just calling for our libera-

tion, for an end to Israel’s occupation, and we are looking to the United States. We hope

the United States will one day not be biased against our dreams.

Q: Would you like Arafat to take a more focused and less compromising stance? Should

he, for instance, just simply say to the U.S. and Israel: Look, the issue is the occupation

and until we hear something positive about ending the occupation, we’re not going to get

tangled up in other issues?

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G AESS : I NTERVIEWS FROM G AZA

R ANTISI : We hope that Arafat will say that, but whenever the Americans come to our

area, they only pressure him to attack Palestinian organizations in the interest of Israeli

security. On numerous earlier occasions, we tried to provide the kind of atmosphere for

negotiations to succeed. For example, during Camp David the situation here was very

calm. There was no violence at all. President Arafat said to the Israelis, please, give us

20 percent of our historic homeland, and you can build your state on the other 80 percent

of our land – and they refused that. They refused to withdraw, they refused to allow the

return of the refugees, they refused to return Jerusalem, and they even refused to allow

us to build our independent state. There are at this moment four million Palestinian

refugees living under tragic conditions because of Israeli policy. But the Israelis have

insisted on continuing their occupation, confronting us with aggression and daily humilia-

tions. So we have no [political] choice – just the choice to defend ourselves and struggle

for our freedom.

Q: Are there any conditions under which Hamas will freeze its armed struggle?

R ANTISI : An end of the occupation – nothing else. Until the occupiers leave, we’ll

continue our struggle.

Q: What specifically do you need to hear from Israel?

R ANTISI : We want to hear from them “we are ready to withdraw, and here’s our time-

table for doing so.”

Q: Is the goal of Hamas to end the 1967 occupation, or is it to replace Israel with an

Islamic state?

R ANTISI : We need to hear first about the goals of the Israelis. Do they intend to transfer

Palestinians to Jordan? Are they looking to reoccupy Jordan, or seize the northern areas

of Saudi Arabia? The Israelis up until now do not even recognize the Palestinians as a

people. So we shouldn’t answer this question until the Israelis make their intentions

known.

Q: The reason I ask these questions is in part because in the American press the ten-

dency is to associate the most extreme positions with Hamas, sometimes in order to

dehumanize its members, and in that way marginalize them so that they’re not a factor in

an eventual solution to the conflict. If Hamas was able to say clearly that it’s not seeking

the destruction of Israel, then certain limits are established and it’s a group that no one

should have objections to talking with. But when you’re ambiguous on this issue . . .

R ANTISI : The most important objective of Hamas is to end the tragedy of the Palestinians,

a majority of whom are living in camps. We want to see our people live like other people

everywhere – living on their land, free of massacres, assassinations or siege. As for

destroying Israel, we haven’t the strength. So to speak as though we did is not at all

logical.

Q: The Israelis are always saying the return of the refugees means the destruction of the

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M IDDLE E AST P OLICY , V OL . IX, N O . 4, D ECEMBER 2002

Jewish state. Is there any way their nerves can be calmed and the refugees still return?

R ANTISI : Just a minute; you ask as an American. Is America a Christian state?

Q: I would say no.

R ANTISI : So why must there be a Jewish state? Does America support racism?

Q: Well, the Israelis are afraid that if they become a minority in their own state, it will be

changed into an Islamic state.

R ANTISI : So, because they fear being a minority, four million Palestinians should live in

misery for life? You are speaking about religion – a “Jewish” state. We can’t accept a

state that’s solely for Jews. It’s not allowed for another religion [other than Islam] to

govern this land. The Jewish people who are living here now, some of them came from

the United States of America or from Canada, some from Europe or from South Africa.

Why did they leave their countries to occupy Palestine and uproot me from my home?

Should we suffer

forever just because

they want to build a

state for Jews?

Q: But Jews don’t

want to live under an

Islamic state.

R ANTISI : But they are

living now under an

American state – as we said, it is not a Christian state. Or if we call it a Christian state,

then Jews are living in the United States under the umbrella of a Christian state like other

Americans. Throughout our history, Jews and Muslims have lived everywhere with each

other. Jews are living in Syria now under the umbrella of an Islamic state. They are living

under an Islamic state in Iran as Iranian citizens. Why should people live in cantons?

Q: Would you be comfortable with the idea of a two-state solution – a Palestinian state

and Israel – if Israel were a state . . . I hesitate to say like the United States, but free of

Israel’s current apartheid-like laws? That is, if Israel were neither a Jewish nor an

Islamic state but existed for all its citizens equally?

R ANTISI : First of all, as I said, they do not accept at all a Palestinian state or the presence

even of Palestinians in the West Bank and are considering transferring Palestinians out of

the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mr. Arafat told them clearly that we accept two states,

but they refused, and they will continue to refuse that in the future.

Q: Not long ago The New York Times ran an article titled “Bombers Gloating in Gaza.”

Their writer quoted you as saying that you can encourage or discourage martyrdom

(suicide) operations through the public use of certain words, like saying “the floodgates of

resistance are open” to give the green light for attacks. What role, if any, do you see

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We’ve told the Israelis again and again

that if they stop killing our kids, our

civilians, we will not use this [suicide

bomber] weapon. It has been our response

to the Israeli massacre of Palestinians.

G AESS : I NTERVIEWS FROM G AZA

political leaders like yourself having in encouraging or discouraging such operations?

R ANTISI : Many times we’ve explained that Hamas has a political wing and a separate

military wing. The military wing plans operations, while the political wing sets a frame-

work for policy and nothing else. So, for example, if we (the political wing) agreed in

negotiations to halt operations, we would see that immediately because we have indirect

connections with the military wing, and all the time they respect our declarations. Not

long ago, for instance, we said Hamas should stop martyr operations in order to give the

Israelis a chance to halt their aggression against our people, but after just two weeks the

Israelis massacred a number of people, so our political leaders said we can’t continue our

cease-fire. Our decisions are announced [publicly] for the very reason that there is no

[direct] connection between the two wings.

In killing our civilians, our kids, Israel has used F-16s, Apache helicopters, missiles,

tanks, they even demolished houses burying people alive in Jenin. So, if we had weapons

like F-16s and Apaches, we would use them, but we haven’t, and so we are left with two

choices. Either we surrender and accept a quiet death, or we defend ourselves using our

own means of struggle. And one of our most effective means, which can rival the impact

of their F-16s, is martyr operations.

We’ve told the Israelis again and again that if they stop killing our kids, our civilians,

we will not use this weapon. It has been our response to the Israeli massacre of Palestin-

ians. For example, after [Israeli settler Baruch] Goldstein’s massacre in Hebron [in 1994]

of innocents at prayer in a mosque, there was a wave of martyr operations; after assassi-

nations, after the killing of five kids in Khan Younis on their way to school, there were

other waves of operations. Each time they’ve been employed as a kind of retaliation to

press the Israelis to stop their aggression and massacre of our people. In this last intifada,

the Israelis have killed more than 2,000 of our civilians, and more than 350 of the dead

have been kids.

SHEIKH AHMED YASSIN

G AESS : Earlier this year The New York Times quoted you as saying that the focus of

Hamas is an end to the occupation. But to that quote the Times writer added, “by that he

(Yassin) means an end to the Jewish occupation of historic Palestine,” which is all of

Palestine. That’s totally different from an end to the 1967 occupation, and it suggests that

the goal of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. So I need to ask you, when you refer to

ending the occupation, do you mean the occupation since 1967 or the whole deal?

Y ASSIN : All of Palestine is occupied. And there is an entity for the Zionist movement on

Palestinian land which embodies apartheid. We want a place that absorbs Palestinian

Muslims, Jews and others without differentiation.

Q: But as I understand it, Hamas is an organization formed to end the 1967 occupation, or

am I wrong about that?

Y ASSIN : I accept the 1967 border as a stage of the struggle but not as the definitive

solution because we still have the right to our land. My home is in Ashkelon [on what is

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M IDDLE E AST P OLICY , V OL . IX, N O . 4, D ECEMBER 2002

now Israel’s southern coast] and not within the 1967 boundaries, and millions of refugees

still have homes inside Israel.

Q: I understand that time often creates opportunities we can’t even see right now, but,

given our limited horizon, is a two-state solution at least a possibility? Can we think of a

two-state solution without necessarily thinking that there has to be continued armed

struggle after that?

Y ASSIN : Our recognition of an Israeli state is conditioned on their recognition of our rights.

Since we still don’t have a state – I don’t have a home to settle on – that means we’re

not in a position to recognize Israel.

Q: Is a two-state solution possible if Israel recognizes a Palestinian state?

Y ASSIN : To predicate a question on “if” isn’t practical in this situation. We can’t say “if

Israel is not there.” If it were that easy, there would be no problem. What we can say is

that a solution based on 22 percent of the land for the Palestinians and 78 percent for the

Israelis is unjust. Still, Israel has not even acknowledged the Palestinians’ right to

22 percent of our homeland.

Q: I’m trying to under-

stand as an outsider what

a mutually acceptable

solution might be. Short of

the idea of an Islamic state

in all of Palestine – most

of the international com-

munity and certainly the

Jews of Israel would

oppose that idea – I’m thinking, as we talk, that perhaps ending Israeli apartheid is one of

the longer-term goals for achieving a settlement. But I’m also wondering, do you think

the only alternative is an Islamic state in all of Palestine, or is there another alternative?

Y ASSIN : Our core position is that the Israelis stole our land and our homes and the whole

world supported them, and now, when we are asking for our land back, the world is not

supporting us, and this is unfair.

Q: America was founded, in part, on the same injustice. The Indians – the native Ameri-

cans – were dispossessed of their land bit by bit, put on reservations and then essentially

marginalized, but at least they are almost equal citizens now because there’s substantially

an end to apartheid in America.

Y ASSIN : And my own best vision for Palestine is of a land for Christians, Jews, Muslims –

a state where everyone has equal rights.

Q: And it doesn’t necessarily have to be an Islamic state?

Y ASSIN : That question should be left for the democratic process. Let the people select

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[A] solution based on 22 percent of the

land for the Palestinians and 78 percent

for the Israelis is unjust. . . . Israel has

not even acknowledged the Palestinians’

right to 22 percent of our homeland.

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