West is 'racist' towards Palestinians: Haniya

The Hamas government leader said Israel's unilateralism was a formula for conflict and asked if Western policymakers ever felt "ashamed of their scandalous double standards" in an article entitled "A good peace or no peace" in The Guardian daily.

He wrote that the West had piled demands on Hamas since they won the Palestinian general election in January, while equivalent demands had not been directed towards the parties in Israel's general election, held Thursday.

The centrist Kadima party of acting prime minister Ehud Olmert topped the poll, having campaigned on a plan to fix Israel's borders by 2010 without any consultation with the Palestinians.

Haniya wrote: "Olmert's unilateralism is a recipe for conflict," adding that the problem in the Middle East was not with any particular Palestinian group but with the "denial of our basic human rights" by Israel.

The United States, European Union and Israel all regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation, given its track record of suicide bombings and its refusal to recognise the Jewish state's right to exist.

"We in Hamas are for peace and want to put an end to bloodshed. We have been observing a unilateral truce for more than a year without reciprocity from the Israeli side," Haniya wrote.

"The message from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to the world powers is this: talk to us no more about recognising Israel's 'right to exist' or ending resistance until you obtain a commitment from the Israelis to withdraw from our land and recognise our rights."

"We are sick and tired of the West's racist approach to the conflict, in which the Palestinians are regarded as inferior.

"Though we are the victims, we offer our hands in peace, but only a peace that is based on justice.

"If the Israelis continue to attack and kill our people and destroy their homes, impose sanctions, collectively punish us, and imprison men and women for exercising the right to self-defence, er have every right to respond with all available means."

Haniya said that his party was democratically elected and if his government was boycotted by foreign powers, "we will persist -- and our friends have pledged to fill the gap".

"This is a good time for peacemaking -- if the world wants peace."

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