New Statesman Exclusive: Hamas leader interview

Thursday, 17 September 2009 22:55

The New Statesman this week publishes an exclusive interview by former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone with Khaled Mish’al, head of the political bureau of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement.

Livingstone writes:

‘The key to peace in the Middle East is restoration of international law and the recognition of the right of both Palestinians and Israeli Jews to live in peace and security side by side. As President Obama says, there is no peace process today. Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, continues to extend illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and maintain a near-complete blockade of Gaza. Palestinians fire ineffectual rockets into Israel. Israel regularly attacks Palestinian territories with modern weapons.

‘No major conflict can be resolved without each side talking to the other. That was the case in South Africa, Ireland and countless other situations where people said they would never talk to their opponents.'

'For these reasons, I thought it important to interview the de facto leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal...Dialogue is necessary to get to clarity and mutual understanding. Sinn Fein did not answer every question at the beginning and neither does Binyamin Netanyahu today.

I hope this interview will help to make the case for the dialogue that is needed, which I believe is inevitable. It is simply a question of how much suffering there will be, on both sides, before we get there.'

Read the full interview here.

On a related note, you can read the report of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which was released this week, here.

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