Hamas not fooled by Resolution 1860

After over a fortnight of a lopsided war between Hamas and the Zionist regime, with the Israeli army’s morale rapidly declining, the United Nations Security Council, taking into account Israel’s security, finally passed Resolution 1860.

Egypt also presented a plan that calls for an immediate truce between Hamas and Israel and the permanent deployment of UN peacekeepers to Gaza and the Rafah border crossing.

The Egyptian plan and the UN resolution show that in regional and international equations, the Zionist regime has always been the intractable side and the Palestinians have always been more reasonable.

This means that international and even Arab organizations have drawn a red line around Israel’s security and always expect the Palestinians to make concessions.

Although the recent Security Council resolution calls for an immediate ceasefire, how and when it will be enforced remains unclear, so Israel believes it can flout the resolution and continue to relentlessly pound the Gaza Strip.

Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal recently stated that any kind of negotiation with Israel before the attacks come to a halt would be a sign of disrespect for the blood of Gaza’s martyrs.

Meshaal dismissed the idea of deploying peacekeeping troops to Gaza and said such a move would only serve to guarantee the security of Israel and disarm the Palestinian resistance forces.

He pointed out that resistance is the only option open to Hamas since the war in Gaza has been imposed on the Palestinian nation and jihadi movements will reject any temporary solution that prioritizes the security of Israel.

The logical stance adopted by the Hamas leaders and their rational approach to finding a practical solution for the people of Gaza show that Hamas is determined to single-handedly resolve the Palestinian question once and for all since history shows that the Israelis have never negotiated in good faith and have never abided by any UN resolutions.

Although Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has called for the deployment of peacekeeping troops in order to disarm Hamas and expand his sway from the West Bank to Gaza, it seems that these forces would only be used to create a security cordon for the Zionist regime.

The war in Gaza has entered a new phase and Israel is bound to experience another military setback, so any compromise by the Palestinians would only serve to save Israel from certain defeat.

Nearly 900 Palestinians have been martyred and 3700 wounded in the Gaza Strip so far, so Hamas will obviously not accept a truce that would provide the Israelis a face-saving exit strategy from the Gaza quagmire.

Hezbollah’s victory in southern Lebanon and the Islamic resistance’s perseverance during the 33-day war of 2006 dealt Israel its first defeat in six decades, and Hamas will follow the same path.

And when Hamas attains victory, it will greatly alter the region’s security and political equations to the benefit of the Palestinian nation.

(Jan. 12 Tehran Times Opinion Column, by Hassan Hanizadeh)

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