My letter to CSM RE Can ignoring Hamas lead to Israeli-Palestinian peace?

RE: Can ignoring Hamas lead to Israeli-Palestinian peace?

Dear Editor

HAMAS does not seek to free Palestine, it seeks to use Palestine and the very real suffering of the persecuted, impoverished and displaced Palestinian people as a way to empower an Islamist agenda- and a way to undermine and destroy a secular two state solution to end the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Your article "Can ignoring Hamas lead to Israeli-Palestinian peace?" wrongly concludes that only HAMAS advocates respect for the Palestinian refugees right of return to original homes and lands. The Arab Peace Initiative clearly points out the importance of respecting the Palestinian refugees right of return with "a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194" , as does the PLO:

"Palestinian refugees must be given the option to exercise their right of return (as well as receive compensation for their losses arising from their dispossession and displacement) though refugees may prefer other options such as: (i) resettlement in third countries, (ii) resettlement in a newly independent Palestine (even though they originate from that part of Palestine which became Israel) or (iii) normalization of their legal status in the host country where they currently reside. What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer – a decision must not be imposed upon them." http://www.plomission.us/index.php?page=core-issues-3

UN Resolution 194 from 1948 states that "The refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible"

What is most significant about HAMAS is that, for Palestine's sake, they could have and should have stepped down from power in order to help end Israel's siege long ago. Instead they have relished the people's suffering and essentially helped Israel assert a punitive economic stranglehold on all of Gaza.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

The Arab Peace Initiative

1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.

2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:

I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.