Interview with Hamas leadership
March 11, 2008
Excellent interview with the political leader of Hamas Khaled Meshaal.
A report released this week by the American magazine Vanity Fair disclosed a plan by the US administration to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas by arming rival Fatah forces through millions of dollars worth of weapons. This as Israel waged its deadliest round of attacks on Gaza since 2000.Al Jazeera’s Hashim Ahlbarra meets with Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal, head of the group’s political bureau, and asks him about the report.In this episode of Talk to Jazeera, Mishaal ,talks about the leaked US plan of arming Fatah and instigating a civil war in Gaza.
He also talks about rocket fire from the coastal strip and answers questions about a possible truce with Israel.Mishaal says the surfacing of this report vindicates Hamas’ coup of Gaza, claiming that it was a pre-emtive measure forced upon them to preserve their existence and the voice of those who voted for them.
Al Jazeera also questions the leader on Hamas’ logic behind rocket attacks from Gaza in light of the recent onslaught by Israel and the humanitarian loss as a result.
The Hamas leader is questioned about his links with Iran and where the group gets its backing from. Mishaal denies any funding or armament from Iran and insists that Hamas is an independent group, reliant on no one.
On talks with Israel, Mishaal says that following the “holocaust” perpetrated by the Israelis, talks are out of the question. He also says that Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian president, should reassess his position on talks as well.
Filed in Hamas, Israel-Palestine, US Politics
Tags: Al Jazeera, Hashim Ahlbarra, interview, Khaled Meshaal, Vanity Fair, video
March 11, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Fanonite - I have quickly written the following response to the pathetic and biased TUC statement of 4th March which mentions but fails to condemn Israel’s bombing of a trades union building in Gaza. Does anyone know who I should send this to? If anyone has any contacts in a union, could they pass this on to them and encourage them to make a noise.
Dear
I was more than disappointed to read the TUC’s March 4th statement on events in Gaza, where Israeli occupation forces recently bombed PGTFU headquarters killing at least one civilian. The statement (http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-14396-f0.cfm) fails to condemn the Israeli attack against the Trades Union building, opening instead with a strong condemnation of both Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israel and Hamas’s alleged attacks on the Trades Union movement.
I do not expect the TUC to wholeheartedly support Hamas’s armed resistance against the illegal Israeli occupation and collective punishment of the Palestinians. Although opinion polls suggest that a majority of Palestinians as well as of people in the wider Arab world view the Qassam rockets as legitimate resistance, they are certainly controversial. But I do expect the TUC to offer some context. Although the statement, in its second paragraph, manages to mention Palestinian deaths and Israeli collective punishment, there is no sense given of the scale of the crimes being perpetrated against the people of Gaza. 130 people were killed in Gaza last week. More than a hundred Gazans have now died because they have been cut off from medical care by the Israeli siege. Again as a result of the siege, 80% of Gazans live on less than $2 a day. 90% of Palestinian industry has closed because of the siege. Gaza and the West Bank have been under illegal military occupation for more than 40 years. Most of the Gazan population are refugees who have been denied their right under international law to return to their homes. The occupier is backed politically, militarily and financially by the powers of the world. By ignoring this context, the TUC statement offers succour to the status quo and, worse, equates the violence of the occupied and oppressed with the much greater violence of the occupier and ethnic cleanser.
I am not an uncritical Hamas supporter, and I believe that if Hamas has indeed harrassed Palestinian trades unionists this should be unequivocally condemned. However, the TUC statement also fails to give context in its condemnation of the “seizure last year” of the PGFTU headquarters. It has now been reported in the mainstream media (see http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804 ) that Hamas’s so-called ‘coup’ actually sought to protect the powers of the democratically-elected Palestinian government from a planned US-organised coup. Both Fatah and Hamas have committed crimes in Gaza which are deeply regretted by supporters of Palestinian rights. It is obvious, however, that this sad state of affairs results directly from the fact that Gaza is occupied and subject to the political machinations of the occupier and its superpower sponsor.
The tone of the TUC statement is indistinguishable from the tone of the British government or the right-wing press. For people who would have hoped that a principled workers’ movement still exists in Britain, this is nothing short of tragic.
Yours
Robin Yassin-Kassab
March 12, 2008 at 5:28 am
I sent the above to Brendan Barber, head of the TUC