Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Khaled Meshaal to Announce New Hamas Charter before his Departure | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55372620
Caption:

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal speaks in Doha, Qatar, August 28, 2014 (AP/Osama Faisal)


Ramallah– Hamas announced Wednesday that the head of its politburo, Khaled Meshaal, would call for a meeting on Monday in the Qatari capital to officially announce the movement’s new political charter.

The announcement confirms earlier reports published by Asharq Al-Awsat on Meshaal’s intention to publicize Hamas’ political document just before the end of his term.

Sources told the newspaper that shortly after the announcement of the charter, Hamas would name the new president and members of its politburo.

Ismail Haniya, former Hamas prime minister in Gaza and a frontrunner, is competing with Moussa Abu Marzouk to succeed Meshaal.

As Asharq Al-Awsat reported in March, the new document would accept borders of the territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war as the basis for a Palestinian State. However, it would not recognize Israel.

The document stresses the Palestinian people’s natural right to return to their homeland.

“Displacing Palestinians and creating a Zionist entity does not cancel the right of Palestinians to their entire land, and does not validate the Zionist entity to violate this land,” the new charter says.

Hamas also describes the Zionist Project as “a racist, aggressive and separatist project based on violating others’ rights”.

It adds that the project was “against Palestine’s people and its vision for freedom, liberation, sovereignty and the return of the refugees. And the Israeli state is the tool of this project and its foundation.”

The charter also criticizes the Balfour Declaration and the British mandate convention on Palestine.

It says that both the declaration and the convention were illegal.

As for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas describes it as a national framework for Palestinian people inside the country and abroad.

It underlines the need to preserve the PLO and deploy all efforts to develop the organization on democratic bases.