Khaled Meshal , Hamas supreme leader and on Isreal's super most-wanted list, spoke out yesterday in an exclusive interview with Italy's La Repubblica .
Allen L Roland
Smashing interview! Hamas's Supreme Leader
Interview with Khaled Meshal Supreme Leader of Hamas
From the 27 January 2006 print version of La Repubblica (Italy)
by Alix Van Buren
"The Super-Most Wanted " Meshal
http://tinyurl.com/95qlu
DAMASCUS --The day of Hamas ' triumph, the supreme leader, Khaled Meshal, keeps his euphoria in check and weighs his words: "This is a first step. Yet, other steps are needed before the goal: the liberation from the occupation ".
It 's not easy to succeed in meeting Meshal (Abu 'l Walid, for his followers). Being a moving target of Israel, he continually changes his headquarters. In Amman, the Mossad injected poison behind his ear with an air-compressed syringe. After being discovered and captured, the Israeli agents were released in exchange for the antidote. The fact raised an international crisis.
Now we 're being brought by an armoured, smoke-windowed Mercedes 200 to meet him. Off with the mobile phones, that have been disassembled and put in a metallic box, off with the bags, off with the shoes.
Mr. Khaled Meshal, what does victory taste like?
"You should ask that to the Americans and Israelis, judging by their dismay before the outcome of the elections. Washington invokes democracy. Well, the constituency expressed their vote. Maybe our democracy has a not much welcomed face to the westerners: however, this is a great day for our nation. "
Is it also for peace? Israel considers your victory as a catastrophe, the end of peace process.
"That depends on Israel, not on us. If it is willing to acknowledge the rights of the Palestinians, to live freely on their own lands, then peace is at hand. We 're ready. But are they? "
Mr. Meshal, are you willing to negotiate?
"Since Madrid and Oslo, accords have lead nowhere. The peace process is at a deadlock, the Palestinian life quality has worsened, the fence is moving forward and engulfing further lands. As to the Road Map, it is unacceptable. It imposes upon us detailed conditions: the disarmament and the arrest of mujaheddins, the giving up of resistance. Yet it 's vague as regards Israel 's duties: it doesn 't say a word about Jerusalem, the refugees ' fate, the extension of territories to give back ".
Nor does Hamas make clear about which part of Palestine it means to free. Please, say it yourself: do you mean to recover historic Palestine that comprises Israel or only the territories occupied in 1967?
"I 'll answer you with another question: why does the world ask the Palestinians to define the borders of its own homeland while it doesn 't ask the Italians to do the same thing with Italy? I know very well what is the map of my country. "
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