Hamas Conflict: Peace Deal with Israel Unlikely, Says Historian

Tel Aviv: Israeli historian and author Benny Morris on Wednesday warned that the Gaza peace deal between Israel and Hamas remains out of reach, adding that the group will never give up its weapons and still seeks Israel’s destruction.

Speaking with ANI, Morris said, “I don’t see a peace occurring between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming years. Hamas will not disarm. Its ideology calls for Israel’s destruction, and it wants to play a part in that destruction.”

Explaining why disarmament is unlikely, Morris said the group’s leaders fear internal rivals as much as Israel. “They will not give up their arms because they want to continue to fight Israel. They also have internal enemies, and if they give up their arms, they are likely to be fired at or killed by those enemies,” he said.

According to him, recent clashes in Gaza between Hamas fighters and the Dughmush local clan, affiliated with Hamas’s rival political party, Fatah, showed this internal tension clearly.

Morris added that the ideology of Hamas, as well as the sentiment among many Palestinians, continues to reject Israel’s existence. If Israel doesn’t accept a two-state solution, the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel, then Palestinians will not give up thier struggle against Israel.

“The present Israeli government and most Israelis oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu and his colleagues, and I fear most Israelis by now, believe that the establishment of a Palestinian state will be an existential threat to Israel’s existence. This is partly due to believing that Islamists will eventually take over any Palestinian state, like the Hamas organisation, because all recent opinion polls have shown that what Hamas does and has done is supported by most Palestinians, both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Suppose Israel doesn’t accept a two-state solution, the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel. In that case, I don’t see how the Palestinians will give up their struggle against Israel because they want Israel to be destroyed. They don’t want Israel to exist. This is Hamas’s public posture, public official position. And most Palestinians in their hearts also agree with this, “ he said. (ANI)

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