This, when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah, once again reiterated to a delegation of 11 EU parliamentarians that "The Hamas government had agreed to accept a Palestinian state that followed the 1967 borders and to offer Israel a long-term hudna, or truce, if Israel recognized the Palestinians' national rights."
This follows closely what he and others in Hamas have been saying for a while now. For instance, from Ahmad Yousef, in the NY Times a while ago (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/opinion/01yousef.html): "We Palestinians are prepared to enter into a hudna to bring about an immediate end to the occupation and to initiate a period of peaceful coexistence during which both sides would refrain from any form of military aggression or provocation. During this period of calm and negotiation we can address the important issues like the right of return and the release of prisoners. If the negotiations fail to achieve a durable settlement, the next generation of Palestinians and Israelis will have to decide whether or not to renew the hudna and the search for a negotiated peace."
Hamas has stated it will never play into what it sees as the mistake that Arafat made, where he first recognized Israel, renounced militancy, all the while that Israel continued its occupation and recognized no Palestinian state, and then began negotiations from a position of weakness.
This demand for the Palestinians to put the cart before the horse is likely continue, as I doubt that Rahmbo has changed his position on the infinite process towards the ever extending horizon of a final status agreement, and I will take an educated guess that Pres. Obama will be taking serious Emanuel's advice on matters Israeli.
Well, maybe they can get Abbas and his West Bank PA cohorts to agree to something, but Abbas already will have some problems with even justifying his continued faux Palestinian leadership role come January.
Bryan
>
> Mr. EMANUEL: Well--well, everybody--I mean, my sequence is the
> Palestinian state doesn't come on the front end. It's something you
> earn through the--through the process, which is exactly what was set
> up by Prime Minister Rabin, Netanyahu and even Shimon Perez. And that
> fact is it is the end goal as they prove themselves. And to date, you
> know, if you had had a state at this point, I don't think there'd be a
> very good situation. Now, Perez...
>
> Yuck.
>
> Doug