Hamas closer to Israel recognition

HAMAS edged toward recognition of Israel, a key international demand, in an agreement worked out by Hamas and Fatah leaders in an Israeli prison.

Israel refused to comment on the document and the Hamas leadership in Damascus was also silent — but there was little reason to believe either would welcome it.

Hamas leaders in Gaza and the West Bank have hinted they might abandon the group’s call for the destruction of Israel, but Khaled Mashaal, the Syria-based leader of Hamas, has rejected any suggestion of moderation.

Also, the document included key Palestinian demands Israel has always rejected — return of millions of refugees to their original homes in Israel and complete Israeli evacuation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Since Hamas won the January 25 parliamentary elections, the Palestinian government has grown increasingly isolated. Western nations, which list Hamas as a terror group, cut off all funding to the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli government froze its monthly transfer of €42 million it collects in taxes for the Palestinians.

The economic boycott has left the Palestinian government unable to pay its 165,000 workers.

The draft agreement was negotiated over the past month by militants held in Hadarim Prison next to the seaside Israeli city of Netanya, including Marwan Barghouti, a leader of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party, and Abdel Khaled Natche, the top Hamas militant held by Israel.

The proposal calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state “in all the lands occupied in 1967,” a reference to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

The document does not include explicit recognition of Israel, but even the implied recognition would mark a major breakthrough for Hamas.

The prison negotiations were also aimed at ending rising tension between Hamas and Fatah, who are vying for control of the government. The rivalry erupted into violence in Gaza this week, killing three people and wounding more than a dozen others, including five on Thursday.