The Las Vegas Review-Journal draws attention to an instructive MEMRI transcript of an interview with the leader of Hamas abroad, one Khaled Mashal. The editorial is posted here by Jewish World Review. The Review-Journal editors write:
Mashal tells his interviewer that Hamas has no interest in a two-state solution that would require Palestinians to live in peace alongside Israel. Moreover, the institute reports, he stated that “taking control of the Gaza Strip following the 2006 elections was necessary in order to build up the resistance, its weapons production and tunnels, without any hindrance from the Palestinian Authority.”
Mashal left no doubt about the Hamas outlook. “First, we have nothing to do with the two-state solution,” he said during the interview. “We reject this notion, because it means you would get a promise for a state, yet you are required to recognize the legitimacy of the other state, which is the Zionist entity. This is unacceptable.”
He also acknowledged that the useful idiots who have taken to the streets in Europe and the United States in support of Hamas terrorists give sustenance to the forces of death and destruction. “Following Oct. 7,” Mashal said, “I believe that the dream and the hope for Palestine from the River to the Sea, and from the north to the south, has been renewed. This has also become a slogan chanted in the U.S., and in western capital cities, by the American and western public.”
It is against this backdrop that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under fire for arguing that a two-state solution to the conflict won’t solve his nation’s security concerns if Palestinian terrorists remain committed to destroying Israel. Among his critics was U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said over the weekend that “the refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable.”
What did Guterres have to say about Mashal’s comments? Not a thing.
MEMRI has posted its own account of the interview here. It has also posted the video below on its YouTube channel.