 Hamas political leader has said that his group will not recognise Israel despite new pressures and will give priority to building resistance to the Jewish state. Addressing a rally in the Syrian capital on Friday to mark the end of the Israeli attack on Gaza a year ago that killed 1,400 Palestinians, Meshaal said Hamas does not want another war with Israel, but it will stick to armed struggle as a means to liberate occupied land. "Hamas will keep rejecting the occupation and refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Priority will remain building and developing the resistance," said Meshaal, who lives in Syria along with other Hamas leaders in exile. "Pressure, siege, temptations and opening doors or communication channels will not fool Hamas, which will not compromise on the rights. Hamas will be only tempted by restoring the land," Meshaal said. Meshaal was referring to increased contacts between Hamas and Western delegations since the Gaza war, including a meeting with a US group that included Jack Matlock, a former American ambassador in Moscow. "Triumphant Gaza today is still wounded. Its houses are still destroyed. It's still under siege and its borders are still closed. Add to this the new steel wall," Meshaal said, referring to a structure being built by Egypt along its border with Gaza to stop the smuggling of arms and goods into the strip. "Today we do not seek war but if war is imposed on us we will fight fiercely," Meshaal said. Meshaal said reconciliation with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, was needed to strengthen the Palestinian cause but he made no new proposals on how to do so after Egyptian efforts to bring about agreement between the two sides foundered. Meshaal also said that captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will not be freed unless Israel releases hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. "Shalit will not to home before the liberation of our prisoners," he told the rally, blaming Israel for the failure to reach a deal on freeing the soldier, who was captured in June 2006. Al Jazeera 
 Iran's official news agency says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reiterated his support for Hamas during a visit by the Palestinian militant group's Syrian-based leader.
In a meeting with visiting Hamas politburo head Khaled Meshaal, Ahmadinejad said that Iran would constantly stand besides the Palestinian nation until what he called "imminent collapse of the Zionist regime (Israel)."
Iranian TV quoted Meshaal as saying that Hamas would continue its fight against Israel and its supporters "until final victory."
"The government and the people of Iran will always stand by the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people," Ahmadinejad said during the meeting. "Today Palestine is symbol of the global front of freedom-seekers and militants."
Iran does not recognize Israel and supports Lebanese-based Hezbollah and Hamas - two of the chief militant groups fighting Israel.
 In an interview published Thursday in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, a Hamas spokesman said that the jihadist movement is loyal to "Palestinian principles" in its policy of terrorism against the Jews until Israel ceases to exist. Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas claimed earlier this month that Hamas had agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state within temporary borders.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesman in Lebanon and close associate of powerful Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal, rejected the idea, however. Hamas, Hamdan explained, has never agreed and will never agree to any recognition of Israel's legitimacy as a sovereign state. An agreement to temporary borders contradicts this position, as it would constitute acceptance of Jewish sovereignty over the pre-1967 borders of Israel, he added. The Hamas plan is based on obtaining a Palestinian state by force of arms, Hamdan said, "not by way of agreements, a path that has failed."
In fact, the Hamas spokesman told Al-Hayat that negotiations between his movement and Abbas' Fatah group reached an impasse over acceptance of the Quartet's call for an end to Arab "resistance" operations; i.e., terrorism. The Quartet - the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and Russia - is involved in pushing for negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Hamdan emphasized further that, in fact, it is Hamas that is remaining loyal to "basic Palestinian principles" in fighting against any agreements with Israel. Meanwhile, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are formulating a new peace plan that calls for a demilitarized, temporary Palestinian state in half of Judea and Samaria.
While the PA has not accepted the plan, Hamdan claimed that PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad supports the idea of a temporary state. Fayyad, claimed Hamdan, has prepared a plan to declare a Palestinian state in 2011. Saeb Erekat, a leading Palestinian Authority spokesman, said that the PA will not unilaterally declare independence. Rather, it will ask the United Nations Security Council to recognize the principle of "two states for two peoples" and affirm the right of the PA to sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. INN
 Five Hamas operatives and two Iranian Revolutionary Guards trainers were killed in an explosion that took place on a Hamas military base near Damascus, Syria, Kuwaiti daily al-Siyasa reported on Sunday. According to the report, the explosion occurred at the start of November, and five more Hamas operatives were also injured during weapons training. Sources told the paper that the explosion was the result of a technical failure during a rocket dismantling and reassembling training exercise. The exercise, which was carried out using Iranian-made long-range rockets, was meant to ease the smuggling of such arms through the Gaza tunnels. The incident covered up and kept quiet in an attempt to hide the presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guards trainers in Syria. Sunday's report was the first in regards to the incident. According to the report, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal and Syrian Military Intelligence Chief Abdulfattah Qudsiyya, responsible for the Revolutionary Guards' trainers in Syria's activity, agreed on keeping the matter under wraps. The sources told the paper that the bodies of the five Hamas men killed in the explosion were buried at the al-Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus. Their families were told that they were killed in a road accident on November 7, when a bus hit a truck on a highway outside of the capital. Simultaneously, the Iranian embassy in Damascus handled the transferring of the Iranian trainers' bodies back to their homeland. Those injured in the explosion were hospitalized at the Tishrin military hospital in the capital, and were placed under isolation and not allowed visitors, for fear the truth about the explosion may come to light. It should be noted that al-Siyasa's report was not confirmed by any other source, and that the paper has been known to gore Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah with sensational reports.
 Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday to stop seeking compromise with Israel but offered him an olive branch, saying Palestinians must end their divisions. Sounding conciliatory after raising the political ante against Abbas following his call for national elections last month, Mashaal said the Islamist group Hamas "stretches its hand" to Abbas' Fatah faction to end divisions between the two sides undermining the Palestinian cause. "Courage dictates that we, as leaders of the Palestinians, be frank with our people and evaluate what compromise has brought us, decide together to suspend or freeze the political settlement process and pursue our real national options," Mashaal told a rally in the Syrian capital. He said compromise with Israel, starting with the 1993 Oslo Accords, had failed to stop Israeli settlement expansion and brought Palestinians no closer to establishing an independent state in the land Israel has occupied since the 1967 war. Abbas suspended talks with Israel during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in December and US efforts to re-start them have since failed. Hamas has opposed the talks and rejected Western demands to recognize Israel, renounce armed struggle and accept existing interim peace deals. "Any leader who insists on the right of return for the Palestinian refugees and on restoring the land, even to the 1967 borders ... must know that the way to do this is not through negotiations or betting on the Americans but through holy struggle, resistance and national unity," Mashaal said. "Our hand is stretched out to reconcile with our brothers in Fatah and the Palestinian presidency to achieve our national project," he said, but did not make any new proposals for reconciliation after Hamas rejected an Egypt-mediated deal. Hamas won a Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006, defeating the once-dominant, more secular Fatah, and won a brief civil war the following year in the Gaza Strip against Fatah. Abbas then sacked the Hamas government and appointed his own administration in the West Bank.
 Craig Nelson, Associate Editor Hamas yesterday declared that it would not allow elections in the Gaza Strip early next year, further ratcheting tensions between the Islamist movement and Fatah.
The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza City said last week’s decree by the president, Mahmoud Abbas, calling for parliamentary and presidential voting on January 24 was made “by someone who has no right to make such an announcement”. Any campaigning was therefore illegal, said a ministry spokesman, Ehab al Ghsain. “Any preparations, any committees, any collecting of names will be regarded as an illegal action that we will pursue,” Mr al Ghsain said.
There was no immediate reaction from Mr Abbas’s office in Ramallah.
With the scheduled elections still 11 weeks away, it was not immediately clear if Hamas would follow through on its threat to ban campaigning and balloting in the Gaza Strip or whether it was another move in a game of political brinkmanship between the movement and the Washington-backed Mr Abbas.
The two have been sharply at odds since the long-dominant Fatah was defeated in parliamentary elections in 2006 and was driven out of Gaza 17 months later in a spate of violent confrontations.
The latest tiff in their long-running quarrel began last week, when Hamas spurned a draft reconciliation deal brokered by Egypt, which would have set June 28 as the date for the next election.
Although Mr Abbas and Fatah approved the pact, the Damascus-based leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, insisted that the draft agreement must be amended to say Palestinians have the right to keep fighting Israel. In response to the rebuff, Mr Abbas issued the election decree, apparently in the hope of pressuring Hamas into shifting its position. With the latest imbroglio, both the Hamas government in Gaza City and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority centred in Ramallah are apparently hoping that the election card will work in their favour. Mr Abbas could proceed with elections solely in the West Bank, and Hamas could act on its threat to hold its own balloting in the Gaza Strip – each camp blaming the other for the deep fault line running through Palestinian politics. In this game of chess, however, each side courts the risk that it will be held most to blame by Palestinians for that fault line.
Hamas has already been weakened by the continued economic embargo of the Gaza Strip, while Mr Abbas has been publicly reviled by many Palestinians for agreeing – under pressure from the United States – to delay action on a United Nations report detailing evidence of possible war crimes, mainly by Israel, but also by Hamas last winter. Mr Abbas has since reversed his position, but the renewed perception that he is more attuned to Washington and Israel than to the grievances of Palestinians has hurt him. For one thing, it appears to have emboldened Hamas in the latest scrap.
“We still stress the need for a reconciliation, but there were some changes on the ground, most important of which was the behaviour of the Palestinian Authority … which caused wide anger inside and outside Palestine,” Sami Khater, a Hamas official in Syria, told the Associated Press last week.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian divide gives the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu a potent excuse to avoid dealing with the Palestinian issue at all and significantly weakens the demands of the Obama administration that it do so.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is due on Sunday in Jerusalem and Ramallah, where she is expected to press Mr Abbas to reopen talks with Israel on a peace agreement.
Source: The National
 Hamas politburo chief in Khaled Mashaal gave a special speech in Damascus in response to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Ramallah speech in which he defended the PA's conduct with regards to the Goldstone Report. "The one who is expected to be the leader, is the one who is leading us to doom," Mashaal said.
The Hamas head accused the PA of "cooperating with Dayton (the American general who trained the security forces) against us, and is taking bribes from those that wish to force on us policies that harm the resistance in exchange for financial benefits for the Palestinians in the West Bank. "This is a group that has not bothered to deny (Israeli Foreign Minister) Lieberman's words, when he said the PA asked to continue the war on Gaza. This is a group that cooperates with the crushing of the Palestinian resistance," he said. Regarding the Goldstone Report of a UN-appointed inquiry commission on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, the Hamas leader accused the Palestinian Authority of an "embarrassment" that led to the deferral of a vote on the report in the UN Security Council. "They use the excuse that the report criticizes Hamas as well, we are used to this, but the ruling Palestinian group came to steer the report away from Israel – and today they are lying about it to their people. A brave leadership is one that tells the truth and admits its mistakes," he said.
According to Mashaal, the Goldstone Report was the straw that broke the camel's back, and has forced him to reiterate the fact that Abbas is holding on to his seat in office illegally. "His term ended in January 2009," Mashaal said, after refraining from addressing the matter up until now "so as not to harm reconciliation efforts." Now, Mashaal claims, "We cannot trust the current leadership with Gaza's blood, as it gives free service to the Israelis, persecutes the resistance and turns a blind eye to settlements. "How can we believe that it will fight for Jerusalem and the right of return? This leadership must be prosecuted," he said, calling for the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership and the rebuilding of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. "This is not a mistake, these are sins, this is an entire perception," he said. Mashaal also criticized the administration of US President Barack Obama, and addressed his recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize: "If Obama won the Nobel because of his promises, then there are many in the world who are eligible for the award."
 by Maayana Miskin Former United States President Jimmy Carter played an active role in the Israel-Hamas exchange last week in which Israel released 20 female terrorists in exchange for a short video of hostage soldier Gilad Shalit. Carter's involvement was revealed by senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud A-Zahar in an interview with the Arab-language daily Al-Kuds al-Arabi. While current U.S. politicians do not speak to Hamas, which is recognized internationally as a terrorist group, Carter has had frequent contact with the group as a private citizen. He has met with Hamas's Gaza head, Ismail Haniyeh, and its foreign leader, Khaled Mashaal. In December of 2008 Carter met with Mashaal and advised him on the price to demand in exchange for Shalit. Carter has also met with Shalit's family, and in a visit during June 2009, reported that he had delivered a letter from them to Hamas to give to the captive soldier. Carter has pushed Israel to open direct negotiations with Hamas, and during his June visit, expressed disappointment in Israel's lack of empathy for Hamas's aims.
“Unfortunately, Israelis don't remember that there are 11,700 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails... They don't understand Hamas's aim to bring about the release of at least some of these prisoners,” he said in a meeting with members of Gush Shalom. Carter expressed sympathy with Palestinian Authority terrorists held in Israel, telling Gush Shalom members that they fared worse than Shalit during their incarceration. Also Involved: Germany
A-Zahar also credited German mediators with bringing about the swap of terrorists for video footage. The swap proves that German involvement in the Shalit affair could bring about results, he said. Source: INN H/T: Atlas
 DAMASCUS, Syria — The exiled leader of the militant Hamas group is threatening to capture more Israeli soldiers in order to win the release of Palestinian prisoners. In a speech in Damascus, Syria, Khaled Mashaal congratulated the Palestinian people on Israel's release Friday of 19 female prisoners in return for a video of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. Mashaal promised to work for the release of thousands of Palestinians held by Israel. He said those who were able to capture Schalit and hold him safely for more than three years are capable of capturing "Schalit and Schalit and Schalit until there is not even one prisoner in the enemy's jails." Source: FoxNews
 Ali Waked and AP Longtime Egyptian effort to see rival Palestinian faction bury the hatchet reportedly successful as Islamist group's chief says treaty may be possible during October
Hamas' exiled political leader said Monday that the militant group has agreed in principle to a proposal for reconciling with its rivals in the Fatah movement in a deal that would clear the way for new presidential and parliamentary elections.
A final deal being brokered by Egyptian mediators will be drawn up and signed in October, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal told reporters in Cairo after talks with Egypt's intelligence chief.
The Gaza Strip Hamas rulers and Fatah, which leads a separate, Western-backed government in the West Bank, have been bitterly divided since a civil war more than two years ago. Bringing the sides together and restoring some Fatah control in the Gaza Strip could open up the blockaded and impoverished seaside territory to more aid from international donors that had shunned dealings with the militants of Hamas.
Egypt has been trying for months to broker such a deal, at first by proposing the formation of a unity government. Hamas, however, refused to be part of any Palestinian government that would involve the recognition of Israel. Now, Egypt is proposing to bring the rivals together in an advisory committee that would have a say in running day-to-day affairs in Gaza and the West Bank until presidential and parliamentary elections can be held sometime in the first half of 2010.
The committee would be headed by Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is also president of the West Bank government. Abbas' government would also be allowed to deploy 3,000 security personnel to Gaza and both sides would release each other's detainees.
"We overcame all the disagreements in the Egyptian paper," said Mashaal, who is based in Damascus, Syria.
He said the Egyptian paper "could pave the way for achieving Palestinian reconciliation, and we have responded to its spirit." "They (Egyptians) will work on laying down a final draft for the reconciliation project in the coming few days," Mashaal said. Then, a meeting bringing together Palestinian groups will be held in Cairo in October to finalize a deal.
Mashaal said immediate reconciliation was critical "in light of what is going on in Jerusalem and the Al-Qasa Mosque." The Hamas leader was referring to Sunday's clashes between police and Muslim worshippers at the Old City's Temple Mount compound.
Mashaal also called for an end to the cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on security-related issues in the West Bank.
Source: YNet
 The British government has condemned former London mayor Ken Livingstone for his interview with Hamas head Khaled Mashaal, published in a UK current affairs publication on Friday. Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis accused Livingstone of handing a "propaganda coup to the leader of a terrorist organization" after an interview with the Hamas leader, who lives in exile in Damascus, appeared in the latest edition of the left-wing political weekly New Statesman. "Ken Livingstone rightly earned praise for his strong and responsible leadership in the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks on London," Lewis said on Friday. "It is therefore particularly regrettable that he learned the wrong lessons from history by handing a propaganda coup to the leader of a terrorist organization." Britain, along with the European Union and US, deems Hamas a terrorist group and has pledged to isolate it until it adopts the Quartet principles - recognizing Israel, renouncing violence and accepting previous interim peace accords. "Hamas has not only breached international law by firing rockets at civilian populations in Israel but continues to violate the human rights of Palestinians in Gaza," Lewis added. New Statesman described the interview as a "world exclusive." Popular UK blog "Harry's Place" disagreed saying it was an exclusive "only in the sense that no other mainstream publication in the world would print it." Relations between Livingstone and the Jewish community deteriorated during his time as mayor following a number of incidents, including an invitation to a Muslim cleric who condoned Palestinian suicide bombers. In 2005 Livingstone likened a Jewish journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard and refused to apologize. The following year, after disagreement over a building project, he suggested that Indian-born Jewish property developers, the Rueben brothers, should "go back to Iran and see if they can do better under the ayatollahs." He claimed later he did not know the Ruebens were Jewish. New Statesman has also had a strained relationship with the Jewish community over the years. In 2002, the weekly was accused of anti-Semitism when it published a story under the title "A Kosher Conspiracy?" The cover was illustrated with a gold Star of David piercing and dominating a UK flag. In 2007, the magazine compared the Marva and Gadna IDF youth programs to Islamic Jihad "summer camps." In 2006, it sponsored the planting of new olive trees in Palestinian areas as an incentive to subscribe to the magazine. Source: JPost
 By KHALED ABU TOAMEH Fatah welcomes a new Egyptian proposal aimed at solving its dispute with Hamas, a high-ranking Fatah official said on Thursday. The Egyptian proposal has the support of the Hamas as well. "Fatah has welcomed and accepted the latest proposal," said Jibril Rajoub, the newly-elected member of Fatah's Central Committee, who said that the proposal would bring the two rival parties closer to signing a "national unity agreement." "President Mahmoud Abbas accepted it after holding consultations with Fatah leaders in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and abroad," Rajoub said, adding that he and a group of senior Fatah leaders were planning to visit the Gaza Strip soon for talks with Hamas leaders. The purpose of the meeting, he said, was to find ways of ending an ongoing power struggle with the Hamas. Earlier this week, sources close to Hamas told The Jerusalem Post that the two parties were scheduled to sign a reconciliation accord under the auspices of the Egyptians before the end of this year. The sources said that the breakthrough in the Hamas-Fatah talks came after the Islamic movement's leader, Khaled Mashaal, held talks in Cairo last weekend with senior Egyptian government officials. On Thursday, Mashaal stopped at Cairo International Airport on his way home from Sudan. A Hamas official in the Gaza Strip said that Mashaal met at the airport with Gen. Mohammed Ibrahim, a senior official with Egypt's General Intelligence Service. The two discussed latest developments related to Egypt's efforts to end the Hamas-Fatah rift and the case of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, the official told the Post without elaborating. On Wednesday night, leaders of various Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, were handed a draft of the latest Egyptian proposal for ending the crisis in the Palestinian arena. The proposal, which has been accepted by both Fatah and Hamas, calls for holding presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories in the first half of 2010 and not in January of the same year as originally planned. The initiative divides the Palestinian territories into 16 electoral districts, 11 in the West Bank and the remaining five in the Gaza Strip. The vote, according to the proposal, would be held under Arab and Western supervision to guarantee their honesty and fairness. On the issue of security, the initiative envisages the establishment of a security committee that would consist of "professional" officers and which would be placed under the supervision of the Egyptians. The committee's main task would be to oversee the revamping of the Palestinian Authority security forces. The Egyptians also want to see another committee, comprising representatives of all Palestinian factions, tasked with the mission of preparing for elections, reconciliation among warring factions and rebuilding houses that were destroyed during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. Read more here,,,,, Source: JPost
 Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal visiting Sudan on Wednesday said that his group produces and smuggles weapons despite the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip. "Your brothers in Palestine, despite the blockade and the closing of border passages ... despite the fleets from east and west, despite all of this, we buy arms, we manage to produce arms and we smuggle arms," AFP quoted Masshal as saying in a recording of a speech to young members of Sudan's ruling party. According to the report, Mashaal, who arrived in Khartoum on Tuesday, did not elaborate on the type of arms produced or the suppliers of weapons. In May, foreign media outlets reported an Israeli air strike in January on a convoy of trucks in Sudan, which was carrying weapons bound for Gaza. American news station ABC reported at the time that the airstrike that destroyed the trucks and killed at least 39 people was not an isolated incident, but was rather one of at least three attacks. According to the report, a US official told the station that two of the strikes took place in the Sudan, while a third occurred in the Red Sea. Israel has yet to offer an official response to the allegations. Source: JPost
 The leader of Hamas has called for Palestinian reconciliation before elections, saying unless his movement is accepted by its rival Fatah, democracy will not lead to unity. Khaled Meshaal, who lives in exile in the Syrian capital, Damascus, was speaking in Egypt on Sunday where progress on the exhange of prisoners with Israel was also discussed. "No presidential or parliamentary elections can be carried out without harmony and reconciliation," Meshaal said in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. "We dismiss any suggestions that the elections will be carried out on the status quo where Gaza will be ruled out and the elections will be carried out in the West Bank... We warn of any hasty decisions of the proposals made by Israel and the US." Hamas won elections in January 2006 but was shunned by the world powers, worsening a power struggle between the Palestinian factions. Hamas presently controls the Gaza Strip, which it seized in 2007 after a series of deadly clashes with Fatah security forces. Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is based in the West Bank. Read more here,,,, Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The leader of Hamas headed to Egypt for a rare visit Saturday, fueling some speculation of possible progress in protracted negotiations between the Islamic militant group and Israel on a prisoner swap. Egypt has served as mediator since Hamas militants captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, near Gaza in June 2006. Hamas demands the release of hundreds of Palestinians by Israel, in exchange for Schalit. German diplomats have become involved in the negotiations in recent weeks, making 11 trips to Hamas-ruled Gaza in the past month, said Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman. German mediators have helped arrange swaps involving Israeli captives in the past, and Taha described the German effort as "serious." However, there have been many false alarms about an imminent swap, and there were no concrete signs of progress Saturday. Mashaal, the top Hamas leader based in Damascus, was to arrive in Cairo later Saturday, Taha said. Hamas officials gave conflicting reports on Mashaal's mission. Some said he was only to discuss the internal Palestinian conflict with Egyptian counterparts, while others said the prisoner swap is also on the agenda. Hamas seized Gaza by force in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to pragmatic Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and leaving him only in control of the West Bank. A Palestinian unity deal is seen as a prerequisite for an eventual Mideast peace agreement, but months of reconciliation talks have yielded little progress. Read more here,,,, Source: FoxNews
 By KHALED ABU TOAMEH A Hamas delegation headed by Mahmoud Zahar returned to the Gaza Strip over the weekend after holding talks in Cairo and Syria on a possible prisoner agreement exchange with Israel. Hamas legislator Salah Bardaweel cautioned against "excessive optimism," saying only limited progress has been achieved so far. The Islamist movement's leader, Damascus-based Khaled Mashaal, is scheduled to travel to Cairo late this week for additional talks on the case of kidnapped IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit. On Friday, Mashaal arrived in Amman to attend the funeral of his 91-year-old father, who died last week. Mashaal was expelled from Jordan and the Hamas offices in the kingdom were closed down 10 years ago. Jordan's King Abdullah II gave Mashaal permission to visit the kingdom for only 48 hours to attend the funeral. He was barred from talking to reporters or making public statements during his stay in the kingdom. The Hamas delegation that returned to Gaza had met in Cairo with German security officials who were mediating between the Islamist movement and Israel, a Hamas representative in the Strip said on Saturday. Read more here,,,, Source: JPost
 August 09 | By Aaron Klein JERUSALEM – A new study asserts Hamas is engaging in a "spin" effort of phony rapprochement with Israel in order to continue engaging with the West, while its leaders are explaining in Arabic they are still seeking the Jewish state's destruction and denying any real accommodation with Israel. "Hamas is conducting a 'smile spin' for the West, particularly the United States. Its main objectives are to ease its political isolation, improve its position vis-Ã -vis the Palestinian Authority and get funds to rebuild the Gaza Strip," concludes the study by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at Israel's Center for Special Studies.
"For the Palestinians, [Hamas] stresses that its fundamental anti-Israeli pro-terrorism strategy remains unchanged." The study quotes liberally from multiple recent Hamas interviews to U.S. and British news media outlets and compares those statements to Hamas rhetoric to the Palestinians during the same period. Khaled Mashaal, the overall chief of Hamas, was interviewed in Damascus two weeks ago by the Wall Street Journal. During the interview, Meshaal told the newspaper his group is willing to agree to an immediate reciprocal cease-fire with Israel as well as a prisoner exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Meshaal claimed Hamas and other Palestinian organizations would be ready to cooperate with any American, international or regional effort to find a "just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict," end so-called Israeli occupation and allow the Palestinian people their "right to self-determination." In a separate interview with the British Economist, Ahmed Yousef, Hamas' chief political adviser in Gaza, was quoted as stating, "Hamas is very close on recognition of Israel … We show all sorts of ideological flexibility on this." Read more here ... Source: WND H/T JihadWatch
Latest recipient of the World-Class Hypocrite Award
 By P. David Hornik It’s now official: the casualty counts you heard for the Palestinians during the recent war in Gaza were wild fabrications put out by the Hamas terrorist organization and its allies, and eagerly accepted and circulated by Western media. The Jerusalem Post reported this week that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has at last opened its detailed dossier on the Palestinian fatalities during the war. It shows a picture radically different from the one that keeps sparking so much righteous outrage against Israel. According to the widely cited figures of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights — which NGO Monitor describes as “pressing [an] anti-Israel agenda in media and international organizations” with its “reports condemning Israel policy often lack[ing] credibility” — some 895 Gaza civilians were killed in the war, or about two-thirds of the total Palestinian death count. But according to the IDF’s Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), the truth is the reverse: about two-thirds of the dead were fighters from Hamas and other groups. Out of the 1,338 Palestinian fatalities, the CLA has now identified over 1,200. The Post notes that “its 200-page report lists their names, their official Palestinian Authority identity numbers, the circumstances in which they were killed and, where appropriate, the terrorist group with which they were affiliated.” Read more ...Source: Pajamas Media
 By NASSER KARIMITEHRAN
Iran: Hamas' top political leader thanked Iran Monday for its support during Israel's Gaza offensive, calling his movement's most powerful ally a "partner in victory."
Khaled Mashaal received a hero's welcome from hundreds of Iranians at Tehran University, where a crowd chanted: "Hail to the soldier of holy war." On Sunday, he met the country's two top leaders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mashaal's visit to Tehran underlined his group's close ties with Iran. But the country's substantial financial backing for the Palestinian militant group could be strained in the coming months, as the Islamic Republic struggles with growing financial troubles exacerbated by the sharp drop in oil prices.
Mashaal's visit was his first since Israel launched its three-week assault in late December, aimed at stopping years of Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel. The fighting killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians, Gaza officials say, along with 13 Israelis.
A cease-fire went into effect two weeks ago but has since been tested by sporadic Palestinian shelling and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. Hamas has claimed victory simply by surviving.
Israel and the United States accuse Iran of supplying Hamas with weapons, including rockets. Tehran denies it, but says it does support Hamas financially—believed to be to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The funding has been vital for sustaining Hamas under the crippling blockade that Israel and Egypt have imposed on Gaza since Hamas took over the Palestinian territory by force in 2007.
Mashaal, who heads the Hamas leadership-in-exile in Syria, said Iran played a "big role" in helping Hamas with money and moral support during Israel's assault.
"God made us victorious in Gaza, and we, the Hamas movement, came to say thank you to Iran, which stood with us," he said in a speech at Tehran University. "You are our partners in the victory in Gaza," he added, addressing the Iranian people. He the specifically thanked Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
"Thank you for all the financial, political and popular support which you have given to us. The Palestinian people will not forget."
Israel, along with the U.S. and Europe, considers Hamas a terrorist group. But Iran sees Hamas as justifiable resistance to Israel and the rightful Palestinian government, since 2006 elections that Hamas won.
Iran and Hamas are ideologically different—Iran espouses a fundamentalist Shiite version of Islam, while Hamas adheres to an equally strict rival Sunni version. But the Palestinian militant group gives Tehran a key foothold on the doorstep of Israel and Arab allies of the United States.
Iran has never revealed how much money it provides to Hamas, but the group has said it received hundreds of million dollars from the country over the past year.
That's only a fraction of the billions Iran earns from oil exports, the main source of its foreign income. But the tumble in oil prices—from a record $147 in July to around $40 a barrel now—has slashed Iran's revenues.
The government plans to cut many subsidies to fight a budget deficit of billions of dollars—which could fuel social disenchantment, already high over a domestic inflation rate of about 25 percent annually.
"Iran's generosity could falter when its annual $100 billion oil income falls to $35 billion due to falling oil prices," said Saeed Laylaz, a prominent Iranian political analyst.
But he said Iran was unlikely to cut off the flow of cash completely, because Hamas and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group—another close ally—"are important for Iran's foreign policy toward the U.S."
Iran's presidential elections in June and persistent international pressure over its disputed nuclear program could also force its leaders to focus more on matters at home.
Separate from the government funding to Hamas, Iranians regularly donate money for the Palestinians to the Red Crescent or to charities—some of which may go through Hamas to Gazans. That money too could take a hit because of economic hardships.
At a fundraiser Monday for Palestinian children orphaned during the offensive, housewife Mehraneh Abdi, 43, gave $20. She said she wanted to give more but can't "since the cost of living has increased sharply in the past months in Iran."
Down the street, teacher Minoo Rasai said the government shouldn't be giving so much either, noting that she has not received part of her salary for months.
"The government should pay our salary rather than paying people abroad," she sighed. Source:Breitbart
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Hamas political leader has said that his group will not recognise Israel despite new pressures and will give priority to building resistance to the Jewish state. 
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