Hamas Can Accept Israel

Yesterday I mentioned a Wikileaks cable expressing the Emir of Qatar's opinion that Hamas would accept a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. Now, the leader of Hamas in the Occupied Territories has said the same thing:

"The Islamist Hamas movement, whose charter advocates the elimination of Israel, would accept the outcome of a Palestinian referendum on a future peace treaty with Israel, its Gaza leader said on Wednesday.

"Ismail Haniyeh, addressing a rare news conference in the Israeli-blockaded enclave, signaled a softening of Hamas's long-standing position prohibiting the ceding of any part of the land of what was British-mandated Palestine until 1948.

"'We accept a Palestinian state on the borders of 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the resolution of the issue of refugees,' Haniyeh said, referring to the year of Middle East war in which Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories.

"'Hamas will respect the results (of a referendum) regardless of whether it differs with its ideology and principles,' he said, provided it included all Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the diaspora."