Tuesday 21 April 2009

Mashaal: Hamas won't allow foreign interventions to disrupt reconciliation


Mashaal to Address British MPs by Videoconference
21/04/2009 Hamas politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal is to deliver an unprecedented videoconference address to a closed meeting of British MPs Tuesday. The Israeli Foreign Ministry is fuming over the event, which is going ahead despite pressure on senior British parliamentarians.

The event was arranged by MP Clare Short, who was ejected from the Labor Party a few years ago by then-prime minister Tony Blair. Short recently led a delegation of British MPs to meet with Mashaal in Damascus.

Short extended personal invitations about a week ago to dozens of MPs to attend the videoconference, to be broadcast to a meeting room in the MPs' office building. A large number of MPs are expected to attend.

The Israeli Embassy in London tried unsuccessfully to get pro-Israel MPs to exert pressure to cancel the event.

Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor said Monday: "If Khaled Mashaal would ask to enter the U.K., he would be denied, because the British government knows very well that Hamas is a terror organization. It is therefore a very serious matter when the British Parliament gets around this obstacle and opens its doors to a terror leader by means of a videoconference."

In recent months, particularly after “Operation Cast Lead”, several MPs have met with Mashaal in Damascus and with Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza. During the Israeli aggression against Gaza over 1400 Palestinians were killed, including 420 children and more than 5300 others were wounded.

U.K.-Israeli relations have been overshadowed recently by closer relations by British politicians and Hamas.


Mashaal: Hamas won't allow foreign interventions to disrupt reconciliation

[ 21/04/2009 - 09:12 AM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Khaled Mashaal, the head of the Hamas political bureau, stated Monday that his Movement would not allow the disruption of the inter-Palestinian reconciliation because of the external interventions, highlighting that all Palestinian parties must not use the foreign interference as a key factor in judging the reconciliation.

At the opening of a photo exhibition organized in the Yarmouk refugee camp within the activities held to commemorate the Palestinian prisoner day, Mashaal said that his Movement condemns the international quartet's intrusion and its attempt to impose its conditions on the Palestinian reconciliation.

He also pointed out that the Arabs and Palestinians should not accept that the dialog turns into a never-ending situation especially since the new American administration gives the Arab-Israeli conflict low priority.

In the context of the prisoner day, the Hamas leader underlined that the Palestinian people at home and abroad along with the Arab and Islamic nation and the world's free people will keep their struggle by all means in order to reach the moment of complete freedom for all Palestinian prisoners.

The Hamas leader stressed that there is one price that must be paid by any Israeli premier, which is the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for their soldier Gilad Shalit, adding that the Palestinian resistance is steadfast and knows how to extract the freedom of prisoners.

No comments: