Cairo – Top Hamas leaders tried to find a formula for a new Palestinian government in talks Monday with Egyptian officials, who stepped up pressure on the militant Islamic group to recognize Israel and renounce violence.
A top Hamas official said the group would, for now, abide by past agreements that Palestinian leaders made with Israel – but would not recognize the Jewish state.
Hamas’ contradictory stance – those agreements include recognition – reflected its strained attempts to win the support of regional powerhouse Egypt, which signed a peace deal with Israel in 1979, and persuade Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to bring his more moderate Fatah party into a coalition government.
Egypt wants Fatah to join the government to contain damage to the peace process with Israel, which says it won’t work with a Hamas-led government. So far, Fatah has rejected Hamas’ calls for it to participate in the government.
Hamas is proposing a national coalition government that would include Fatah and other Palestinian factions. If this fails, it proposes appointing an independent prime minister and leaving the vital control over Palestinian security forces in Abbas’ hands, said a Palestinian official who is close to the Cairo talks.
Khaled Mashaal, Hamas’ exiled political leader, along with other Hamas leaders based in Syria and in the Palestinian territories, held talks Monday with Omar Suleiman, head of Egypt’s powerful intelligence service.
Last week, Suleiman, Egypt’s top mediator with the Palestinians, said Egypt intends to tell Hamas leaders that they must recognize Israel, disarm and honor past peace deals.
Hamas leaders insisted Monday that they could not change their stance.
“We can’t recognize Israel, as that violates our principles and the ticket on which we run in the election that is of resistance, reform and change. You don’t run with an electoral program, and when you win, reverse it,” one Hamas leader, Mohammad Nazal, told The Associated Press.
Mashaal’s right-hand man, Moussa Abu Marzouk, tried to strike a middle ground, saying Hamas would not abrogate the 1993 Oslo peace accords signed by Israel and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
“There is no authority that inherits another authority without abiding by the agreements already made,” he said, speaking to reporters Sunday before the talks started.
Still, he warned that Hamas might try later to call off the deals.
“If the agreements contradict logic and rights, there are legal measures to be taken. … There are no eternal agreements,” he said Sunday.
