When Will Obama and the West Listen to Hamas?

As U.S. President Barack Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday (left),
senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk (at far right, holding rifle) reiterated his organization's
commitment to eliminate Israel.

By Khaled Abu Toameh at Gatestone Institute

• What senior Hamas figure Musa Abu Marzouk and other Hamas leaders are saying is very clear: Even if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, Hamas and other Palestinians will continue to fight until Israel is completely destroyed.
• Hamas is openly stating that it will use any future Palestinian state as a launching pad to attack and eliminate Israel.
• Hamas is not a small opposition party in the Palestinian territories that can be dismissed as a minor player. Hamas is a large Islamist movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls the entire Gaza Strip with its population of 1.8 million Palestinians. Hamas, not much different from Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, has its own security forces, militias, weapons and government institutions.
• The Obama Administration and Western governments can talk as much as they like about the two-state solution. Even if President Abbas agrees to a Palestinian state, he will never be able to persuade Hamas, Islamic Jihad and many other Palestinians to recognize Israel's right to exist.
• Under the current circumstances, where Hamas and other Palestinians continue to dream about the destruction of Israel, any talk about a two-state solution is nothing but a joke.

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