Hamas Struggles to Gain World's Acceptance

Tue Jan 31, 2:13 PM ET

JERUSALEM - No more screeds against the "Zionist enemy" or threats to "plant death in every corner" of Israel. Since winning Palestinian parliament elections last week, Hamas has moderated its usually bombastic rhetoric in subtle ways that fall well short of Western demands to renounce terror and recognize Israel's right to exist but suggest the group is fumbling for ways to gain international acceptance.

"We can't expect Hamas to shift 180 degrees in one week. It has started down a gradually moderate path," said Talal Okal, a commentator for the Palestinian daily Al Ayyam.

Immediately after it became clear that Hamas had swept the Jan. 25 election, leaders of the radical Islamic group went on an unprecedented public relations blitz, putting forward an image that - to them at least - appeared reasonable, rational and open to compromise.

Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, told reporters the group would extend its year-old informal truce if Israel reciprocated. He rejected peace talks, but said "if the Israelis have something to fulfill the basic demand of the Palestinian people concerning the occupied territories, detainees, question of Jerusalem, our national interests, we are going to re-evaluate this argument."

In a later interview with CNN, Zahar said Hamas could agree to a long-term truce - though not a peace agreement - if Israel withdrew from all the lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War: the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal also softened the group's complete rejection of previous agreements between the Palestinians and Israel, saying they were "a reality."

"We will respect any agreement as long as it is in the interest of our people," he told reporters in Damascus, Syria.

Hamas leaders tried to play down any changes in their rhetoric. "This is not new," said Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official based in Beirut, Lebanon.

But other Palestinians said these small shifts marked a revolution for the militant group.

"This is a big leap forward. We are talking about a movement that was only until a few weeks ago fully engaged in armed resistance and violence," said Ziad Abu Amr, who serves as a liaison between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas.

But neither Mashaal nor Zahar directly said Israel had a right to exist and neither said the group - which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide attacks in recent years - would give up violence or pursue peace efforts.

In the CNN interview, Zahar even trotted out an old conspiracy theory that says the two blue lines on the Israeli flag - which represent the stripes on a Jewish prayer shawl - actually prove Israel's expansionist dreams, with one stripe representing Egypt's Nile River and the other Iraq's Euphrates.

So far, Western nations do not feel Hamas has come anywhere close to taking the steps needed to become a responsible governing party. Europe and the United States have threatened to cut off foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas takes over without changing its ideology.

"For us, it is fundamental. We cannot cooperate with an organization that won't renounce violence and be able to negotiate with the other side," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Tuesday.

The Hamas charter, adopted in 1988, is unyielding on the fate of Israel, which it pledges to destroy, and rejects any peaceful means of resolving the Mideast conflict.

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad (holy war). Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors," the charter states.

Hamas introduced suicide bombings into the conflict here, as its leaders referred to Israel only as the "Zionist enemy," and pledged to "open the gates of hell" and force "rivers of blood" to run through its streets.

Despite the rhetoric and the violence, the group has shown a pragmatic willingness to compromise its ideology in the past.

With Palestinians weary of the devastating fighting with Israel that began in September 2000, Hamas' spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, came up with a new plan. Palestinians would accept a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in exchange for a long-term truce with Israel.

The proposal was similar to the one Zahar described to CNN, though Yassin emphasized the truce would be only a stage leading to the eventual destruction of Israel, a detail Zahar did not mention. Israel assassinated Yassin in March 2004.

Hamas did eventually agree along with other militant groups to an informal cease-fire in 2005 and abandoned its longtime refusal to enter politics by participating in municipal elections last year and then the parliamentary vote.

Its parliamentary platform focused on reforming the Palestinian Authority and ending chaos in Palestinian areas. It did not mention destroying Israel, though it affirmed the right to resistance and appeared to rule out peace talks.

Abu Amr said the West needs to have some patience with Hamas and encourage the signs of moderation instead of threatening to cut off aid.

"Things take time," he said. "You can't expect people to make radical shifts immediately and they should be given the time to weigh their options and adjust to the new political realities without undermining their credibility in front of their people."

But there is only so far Hamas can go, Israeli analyst Roni Shaked wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

"If Hamas abandons jihad, recognizes Israel, conducts political negotiations and gives up the dream of a state ruled by Islamic law, it will no longer be Hamas," he said.

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