‘We shall never recognize... a Zionist state on our soil’

IT IS WIDELY recognized that the Palestinians are among the most politicized and educated people in the world. When they went to the polls Jan. 25, they were well aware of what was being offered, and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a program of reform.

There were voices, locally and internationally, warning them not to vote for an organization branded by the U.S. and the European Union as terrorist because such a democratically exercised right would cost them the financial aid provided by foreign donors.

The day Hamas won the Palestinian elections, the world’s leading democracies failed the test of democracy. Rather than recognize the legitimacy of Hamas as a freely elected representative of the Palestinian people, seize the opportunity created by the result to support the development of good governance in Palestine and search for a means of ending the bloodshed, the U.S. and the EU threatened the Palestinian people with collective punishment.

We are being punished simply for resisting oppression and striving for justice. Those who threaten to impose sanctions on our people are the same powers that initiated our suffering and continue to support our oppressors almost unconditionally. We are being penalized while our oppressors are pampered. The U.S. and the EU could have used the success of Hamas to open a new chapter and to understand better a movement that has so far been seen largely through the eyes of the Zionist occupiers of our land.

Our message to the U.S. and EU is this: Your attempt to force us to give up our principles or our struggle is in vain. Our people who gave thousands of martyrs, the millions of refugees who have waited for nearly 60 years to return home and our 9,000 prisoners in Israeli jails have not made those sacrifices in order to settle for close to nothing. Hamas has been elected mainly because of its immovable faith in the inevitability of victory; Hamas is immune to bribery, intimidation and blackmail.

Although we are keen on having friendly relations with all nations, we shall not seek friendships at the expense of our rights. We have seen how others, including the peoples of Vietnam and South Africa, persisted in their struggle until their quest for freedom and justice was accomplished. We are no different; our cause is no less worthy; our determination is no less profound; our patience is no less abundant.

Our message to the Muslim and Arab nations is this: You have a responsibility to stand by your Palestinian brothers and sisters whose sacrifices are made on behalf of all of you. Our people in Palestine should not need to wait for any aid from countries that attach humiliating conditions to every dollar or euro they pay despite their historical and moral responsibility for our plight. We expect you to step in and compensate the Palestinian people for any loss of aid, and we demand you lift all restrictions on civil society institutions that wish to fundraise for our cause.

Our message to the Palestinians is this: Our people are not only those who live under siege in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but also the millions languishing in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and the millions spread around the world unable to return home. We promise you that nothing in the world will deter us from pursuing our goal of liberation and return.

We shall spare no effort to work with all factions and institutions in order to put our Palestinian house in order. Having won the parliamentary elections, our medium-term objective is to reform the Palestine Liberation Organization in order to revive it as a true representative of all the Palestinian people, without exception or discrimination.

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 from God and his messenger, Muhammad (peace be upon him), 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 recognize the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognize the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else’s sins or solve somebody else’s problem.

But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.