Hamas Candidate Says “United Jerusalem” to be Arab Capital 14:53 Jan 08, '06 / 8 Tevet 5766
By Scott Shiloh
The man who heads the Hamas election list in the upcoming PA parliamentary election said that a “united Jerusalem,” or the entire capital of Israel, must be the capital of a Palestinian state.
The Hamas candidate, Ismail Hania, also said that if elected, the terror group would stick to its policy of jihad, or holy war against the Jewish state. Recent polls show the Hamas receiving 30% or more of the popular vote in the election scheduled for later this month.
At an election rally in Khan Yunis in the Gaza district, Hania said there would be “no negotiations with Israel, just the barrel of the gun, the only language Israel understands.”
Defense Minister Sha'ul MofazÂ’s recent comments to the effect that Israel would open a dialogue with the Hamas under certain conditions was interpreted by Hania as an expression of weakness.
Hania said Mofaz’s position exemplifies that “the Zionist enterprise is beginning to collapse. The next phase is the disintegration and withdrawal of the occupation, and the rise of eternal Islam and the eternal Islamic nation.”
At the rally, Hania tried to distinguish his party from the other terrorist groups running for office in the PA. He said the Hamas would never make any concessions to Israel.
He outlined his groupÂ’s order of priorities as Islam, and the defense of "Palestinian interests" which he identified as land, Jerusalem, the return of refugees, release of prisoners held by Israel (including the assassins of IsraelÂ’s Tourist Minister Rehavam ZeÂ’evi), and the right to continue the jihad against Israel and to make it the policy of the PA parliament.
Regarding Jerusalem, Hania said that the terror groupÂ’s policy of making the entire city of Jerusalem the PA capital found expression in the location of the groupÂ’s suicide attacks. Those attacks deliberately targeted the Jewish neighborhoods of the city in order to emphasize the PA territorial claim to the entire Jewish capital.