As a militant Islamic Palestinian national organization, Hamas’s adherents believe that Israel is illegitimate and should be destroyed through Jihad. Hamas opposes all recognition and negotiation with Israel, and likewise opposes the PLO/PA who have negotiated and collaborated with Israel from time to time. Hamas and the PA’s competition severely fragment the Palestinian political community.
In September 2023, thirty years after the historic signing of the Oslo Accords, there is occasion to review Prime Minister Rabin’s understanding of them. I assembled this collection years ago from Daily Reports- Near East and South Asia, 1993-1995. Two short items about Rabin’s views are also found or linked here. Rabin provided a summary of his views of the Accords in a Knesset speech in October 5, 1995. Some of Rabin’s reasons for signing the Accords are also provided in Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers.
November 1, 1995 Three days before he was assassinated Nov. 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told his speechwriter Yehuda Avner why he recognized the PLO and Yasser Arafat. That recognition came in the exchange…
The Israeli investigation concludes that Yigal Amir is Rabin’s assassin. The Commission does not assess the impact on the assassin of the vicious language directed at Rabin for signing the Oslo Accords.
President Clinton and Prime Minister Peres agree to deepen cooperation between their countries through regular consultation in all economic, political, military spheres.
This is the third (1971 and 1985) and most extensive trade agreement signed between Israel and the EC/EU, emphasizing that more than half of all Israeli exports are to Europe. Virtually every conceivable area of sharing and exchange is noted in the agreement.
During the May 2021 Israeli-Palestinian clashes, Arab citizens of Israel clashed with Jewish Israelis. By comparison in October 2000, similar clashes were longer, more intense with similar underlying causation. Read the context with the findings of the Or Commission that investigated them.
Prime Minister Sharon unilaterally withdrew Israeli military and civilian forces from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Sharon sought to ensure Israel’s Jewish and democratic essence by getting out of the lives of the Palestinians. Instead Hamas used the territory to kill Jews and degrade Israel morally. Two decades later what would Sharon have said about trusting your neighbor unilaterally?
Adopted in August 2006, this UN Resolution brought the 33 day Israel-Hezbollah war to an end, but it conspicuously failed to bring the Israel-Hezbollah conflict to conclusion. Though intended, keeping Hezbollah fighters from reoccupying the Israel-Lebanese border areas was not halted, giving rise to semi continuous cross the border firings, leading to its intensification after October 2023, with Hamas attack on Israel.
Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh says, “we shall never recognize the “usurper Zionism government”…continue Jihadist movement until liberation of Jerusalem.”
Focusing on the Arab spring and Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, Obama seeks democratic reform in the region and advocates two states for two peoples based on the 1967 lines with land swaps.
In a major speech, Khalid Mishaal, the Chief of the Political Bureau of Hamas presents the organization’s vision for liberation of all of Palestine, stating that it is national duty through Jihad and armed resistance. “Palestine, from its river to its sea, from its north to its south, is the land of the Palestinians; their homeland, and their legitimate right. We will not, in any way, recognize the legitimacy of the occupation. We do not recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, in any way.
Biden’s is seized by Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and its continued support of terrorist organizations, like Hezbollah and Hamas; they endanger Israel and the world. Golda Meir told him. “Israel’s secret weapon; it has no place to go.”
In Jerusalem, Obama affirms the bonds in the US-Israeli relationship, praises Israel’s democracy, calls for Israelis to support a democratic Palestinian state, and Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Hamas has opposed all agreements and cooperation which either the PLO or the Palestinian Authority have signed with Israel. “Hamas will never recognize Israel. This is a red line that cannot be crossed.
As it has in the past Hamas may accept a tahdi’a or calming down of tensions, or even a temporary truce or hudna, negotiated by a third party, but for it to accept Israel as a reality is totally contrary to its ideological outlook.
Just as al-Qaeda seeks the total destruction of western democracies, Hamas seeks Israel’s total demise. Since its inception in 1988, Hamas has been crystal clear about its opposition to Zionism and Israel.
Following two weeks of Israeli-Hamas fighting, it calls for a cease-fire, and for a “lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by peaceful means.” The Hamas-Israeli war occurs again in 2013-2014.
US President announces creation of a coalition of countries to fight against the Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. His plan calls for limited US military action with supplies provided to others fighting on the ground.
Vigorously promoting this Iran Deal as a viable way to block and limit Iran pathways to a bomb. While recognizing Israel’s intense trepidation to the deal, he forcefully claims that war remains the only alternative to accepting this agreement, or to any changes to the agreement.
Netanyahu reproaches the international community for supporting the Iran deal, the UN for its deafening silence against threats to Israel, and, against Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for promising to cancel all agreements with Israel.
The US promises Israel $38 billion in military aid over a decade, the assistance promised despite Jerusalem and Washington periodically differing over matters relating to Iran and the Palestinians.
The general principles are restated as they are in the 1988 founding Hamas Charter, jihad is the means to liberate Palestine, with an important notable addition, that these principles include ‘no recognition of the Zionist entity,’ for their point of view a terrible PLO recognition in September 1993. This document also restated the Palestinian right of return to all of Palestine defined as from the Jordan River on the east to the Mediterranean Sea.
U.S. President Donald Trump recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights more than 37 years after Israel annexed the mountains.
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