Friday, April 25, 2014

Abbas in 2009: There is "no disagreement between Fatah and Hamas"

"About belief? None!
About policy? None!
About resistance? None!"

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

The agreement signed this week between Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah and the terrorist organization Hamas to form a unity government should not have surprised international observers. For years Mahmoud Abbas has been seeking and demanding unity between Fatah and Hamas, despite international recognition of Hamas as a terror organization. In 2009, Palestinian Media Watch documented Abbas' assertion that there is nothing to prevent unity because Hamas and Fatah agree on all important issues:

"There is no disagreement between us [Fatah and Hamas]: About belief? None! About policy? None! About resistance? None! So what do you [Hamas] disagree about? Why are you not signing the [reconciliation] agreement?" 
[Official Palestinian Authority TV Dec. 31, 2009]
Click to view

What is clear from the documentation PMW has released in recent reports is that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, like Hamas, deny Israel's right to exist, glorify terror and incite hatred against Jews and Israelis. The only reason there was no agreement between the two parties from 2009 until now was because of internal political competition between Hamas and Fatah, and not because of essential differences in their attitude towards Israel.


The following is a longer excerpt from Abbas' statement from 2009:
"We have said, more than once, that we are opposed to the rockets [from Gaza] which are of no use. And [Hamas] has said that we [Fatah] are weak, that we don't want [violent] resistance, and we don't want, and we don't want. They [Hamas] have confronted us with agreements with other organizations [in Gaza], and they have even begun preventing [terror attacks], and they have even begun to strike at anyone who tries to carry out acts of [violent] resistance...
In short, there is no disagreement between us [Fatah and Hamas]: About belief? None! About policy? None! About resistance? None! So what do you [Hamas] disagree about? Why are you not signing the [reconciliation] agreement?"
[Official Palestinian Authority TV Dec. 31, 2009]

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