DOHA(Palestine Foundation Information Center)Hamas Movement has denied press remarks attributed to the head of its foreign political bureau Khaled Mishaal on the recognition of Israel.
The Movement issued a press statement on Thursday in response to what is being circulated about Khaled Mishaal’s interview with journalist Georges Malbrunot, published in the French newspaper Le Figaro, on the question about the recognition of Israel.
Hamas explained that Malbrunot included a set of his personal opinions and private comments in the published article, apart from the clear and specific statements of Khaled Mishaal who affirmed Hamas’s absolute refusal of the recognition of Israel. The Movement said that the journalist’s act violates journalistic ethics and professionalism.
The statement referred to Mishaal’s original remarks in which he said that “our position clearly stipulates for the unrecognition of the legitimacy of Israel. We have had a lesson from the Oslo Accords in which the leadership of the PLO recognized Israel in 1993 in return for nothing.”
Mishaal asserted in the interview that Hamas’s political document in 2017 confirmed the Movement’s position adopted in national consensus with the Palestinian factions on the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital and with preserving the right of return without recognizing Israel. As for the truce, “it is negotiable”, he said.
In another statement, Hamas commented on what is being circulated about news published by journalist Georges Malbrunot in the French newspaper Le Figaro, related to his question on the date of Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, by saying, “This journalist reported, in an article full of fabrications and lies, an allegation that Yahya Al-Sinwar had asked Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri to inform Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah about the operation half an hour before it took place, attributing that to Osama Hamdan.”
Hamas stressed that this journalist’s fabrication of such statements and attributing them to Hamas leaders and figures, in addition to his unprofessionalism, clearly reveals the newspaper’s bias and editorial line.
