USA Today, December 8, 2006.
Note of Likud of Holland: then Palestinian prime minister confirms that
the peace accords that have been signed will not be honored by the
Palestinians, they simply were to get Israeli concessions. So new concessions
'for peace' will be equally useless, the Palestinians will always want more.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told thousands of
Iranians on Friday that his Hamas-led government will never recognize Israel
and will continue to fight for the "liberation of Jerusalem."
Making his first visit abroad since the militant group took power in March,
Haniyeh blasted U.S. demands that Hamas recognize Israel as a basis for
renewed peace talks and before international aid to the Palestinians resumes.
The U.S. "and Zionists ... want us to recognize the usurpation of the Palestinian
lands and stop jihad and resistance and accept the agreements reached with
the Zionist enemies in the past," Haniyeh told worshippers at Tehran University.
The United States is pressing the Palestinian government to not only recognize
Israel, but to renounce violence and form a national unity government with the
moderate Fatah party.
"I'm insisting from this podium that these issues won't materialize. We will
never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like
movement until the liberation of Jerusalem," he said.
Haniyeh arrived in the Iranian capital Thursday for four days of talks with
Iranian leaders including hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has
called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
The Palestinian prime minister is on his first tour abroad since Hamas took
office.
Haniyeh called Iran, a longtime ally of Hamas, the Palestinians' "strategic
depth" because they were bound together in their fight against Israel.
"They (Israelis) assume the Palestinian nation is alone. This is an illusion.
... We have a strategic depth in the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.
