DURBAN – The Islamic resistance movement in Gaza, Hamas, has made a ground-breaking change to its charter by accepting a Palestinian state along the 1967 Green Line, the internationally recognised border which separates Israel from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The organisation, which controls the coastal territory, hitherto had said it would only recognise a Palestinian state on all of historic Palestine which includes the occupied territories and Israel.
However, the group in a Monday night statement, referring to the charter, said it refused to "recognise the legitimacy of the 'Zionist entity'", referring to the Jewish state.
"Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus," the charter read.
Despite the change, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement regarding the charter, calling it a "smoke screen", according to Israeli news daily Haaretz.
"We see Hamas continuing to invest all of its resources not just in preparing for war with Israel, but also in educating the children of Gaza to want to destroy Israel," the statement said.
The new charter further emphasised the importance of Jerusalem as the future Palestinian state's capital, and the holiness of Al Aqsa Mosque to Palestinians and Muslims, while accusing the Israeli occupation of attempts to Judaise the mosque, Islam's third holiest site.
The group maintained its stance on the issue of Palestinian refugees, saying that the right of return was an "inalienable" and "natural right", both individual and collective, the Palestinian news agency Maan reported.
"The Zionist project is a racist, aggressive, colonial and expansionist project based on seizing the properties of others," the charter said, in reference to Israel, adding that "it is hostile to the Palestinian people and to their aspiration for freedom, liberation, return and self-determination".
Hamas further defended the legitimacy of armed resistance against the occupation, though it accepted other forms of non-violent resistance as well, saying that "managing resistance, in terms of escalation or de-escalation, or in terms of diversifying the means and methods, is an integral part of the process of managing the conflict".
In another departure from the group's previous charter, written in 1988, Hamas affirmed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "is with the Zionist project, not with the Jews because of their religion".
"Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity," the charter said.
The charter also brought up the contentious issue of Hamas' long feud with the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the de-facto West Bank capital of Ramallah, accusing it of trying to eliminate the Palestinian cause.
"Hamas affirms that the role of the PA should be to serve the Palestinian people and safeguard their security, their rights and their national project," the charter said, while simultaneously calling for free and fair national elections.
After the PA announced the elections at the end of January would be scheduled in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Hamas promptly rejected the plan, saying that elections should only take place after the more than decade-long rivalry between Hamas and Fatah came to an end and reconciliation was achieved.