PA foreign minister: Cease-fire just a liberation tactic
[Distributed by the Israel Foreign Ministry on 14 December 2006]

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Mahmoud a-Zahar declared this week
that the present cease-fire (hudna) does not constitute recognition of
Israel, but is rather one of a number of tactical steps on the way to the
"complete liberation" of Palestine.

"We as Muslims are the owners of this land and we shall not give up a single
handful of Palestinian soil," Zahar told students at Gaza City's Islamic
University on Sunday (10 Dec).

He declared that a solution to the conflict is not the creation of a
Palestinian state according to the 1967 boundaries, but the total liberation
of "all Palestinian lands" -- a popular euphemism for the territory
"occupied" by the State of Israel. The establishment of a Palestinian state
would be followed by an "Islamic cultural enterprise."

Zahar told the students that Israelis have already begun to question whether
Israel will continue to exist in the next few coming decades.

Zahar demanded that the PA renounce all agreements it signed with Israel,
which he said have brought disaster upon the Palestinian people. In
addition, he rejected any type of security coordination with Israel, which
he termed "a betrayal of the homeland."

PA Deputy Minister for Religious Affairs Salah Alrakab told the students
that Islam forbids signing a peace agreement with Jews, because "The
conflict with the Jews is a religious, existential struggle and is not a
conflict over borders." At most, he said, Islamic law permits signing a
temporary hudna (cease-fire).

The Jews have no claim to a Land of Israel but that stated in the Torah, he
continued, which has already been proven to be a forgery. Liberation of the
land will be accomplished only by jihad through the general mobilization of
the Islamic nation, he said, which is the shortest way to restore
Palestinian rights and shrink "the greed of the Jews."