Jimmy Carter, the former US president, said yesterday that Hamas had promised it would accept a Palestinian state in only part of the territory traditionally claimed, implicitly accepting Israel's right to the remainder.
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Mr Carter was clearly anxious to portray his Middle East tour as a success
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Mr Carter said Hamas would accept a Palestinian state consisting of just the occupied territories if the Palestinian people agreed to it in a referendum.
The militant Islamist group is understood to demand at least part of Jerusalem, the traditionally Arab eastern half of the city, as the capital of the new Palestinian state.
Mr Carter said this showed Hamas, which has traditionally refused to recognise the right of Israel to exist, was willing "to live as a neighbour in peace next door" to the Jewish state.
Mr Carter was speaking after a nine-day tour of the Middle East during which he broke new diplomatic ground by meeting the Hamas leadership exiled in Damascus.
America, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations all refuse to speak officially with Hamas on the grounds it is a terrorist organisation, although Mr Carter said this diplomatic boycott must end for a political solution to be reached in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"We do not believe that peace is likely and certainly that peace is not sustainable unless a way is found to bring Hamas into the discussions in some way," Mr Carter said in a speech delivered in Jerusalem.
"The present strategy of excluding Hamas and excluding Syria is just not working."
Mr Carter was clearly anxious to portray his Middle East tour as a success although many observers pointed out Hamas has hinted several times it would accept a reduced Palestinian state consisting of just the occupied territories. The current US administration was not impressed with the outcome of Mr Carter's visit. "I can't see that anything's fundamentally changed here," Tom Casey, State Department spokesman, said.
And Dana Perino, White House spokesman, said Hamas had broken promises in the past and should be judged on whether it ends its strategy of firing rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns populated by civilians.
"I think you can take it with a grain of salt," she said. "We have to look at the public comments and we also have to look at actions, and actions speak louder than words."
Last night there was little sign of the militant group changing its strategy of military confrontation with Israel as rockets were fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza into the Jewish state.
Speaking later at his own press conference in Damascus, Khaled Meshaal, overall leader of Hamas, said his group might accept a relatively limited Palestinian state but without explicitly accepting the right of Israel to exist.
"We agree to a (Palestinian) state on pre-67 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital with genuine sovereignty without settlements but without recognizing Israel," he said. |