A Quote by Richard Engel

Hamas is a Palestinian political party with an aggressive militant wing. — © Richard Engel
Hamas is a Palestinian political party with an aggressive militant wing.
The victory of Hamas is not only based on the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has a vision and a program, and this is the reason why the Palestinian people chose Hamas. However, there is no doubt that the corruption helped Hamas's victory.
Even Hamas - Hamas is a terrorist group - do you know that Hamas came out in opposition to [Donald ]Trump`s statement? That puts the Republican Party, the Democrat Party, and everybody else in the establishment and [Barack]Obama on the same side Hamas is on. And over here all by himself is Donald Trump.
Hamas was born to destroy. Hamas does not know how to build. I doubt they will be able to build a modern Palestinian state and hope their lies will be exposed to the Palestinian public.
In 2006, I hung out with The Carter Center as they monitored the Palestinian elections. Nobody thought Hamas would win. Hamas did not think Hamas could win. The lion's share of folks I spoke to who were voting for them were not actually voting for Hamas but against Fatah.
Hamas' battle is against the Zionist occupation in the Palestinian land. Hamas has no desire to change its battlefield.
Hamas is a political party and political parties don't recognize other countries.
For decades, since the mid-twentieth century, the nationalist movement, and Fatah in particular, has dominated the political scene. Palestinian politics were primarily nationalistic, secular. Now, suddenly we are seeing the election of a religious party with extreme political ideologies and with a social agenda that seems inconsistent with the cultural heritage of the Palestinian people.
Hamas' leadership needs new blood. I will continue to serve my people. But the presidency of the Palestinian Autonomous Authority is not a free, sovereign position - it is an office that is confined by the occupation. That's why this position is not interesting for Hamas.
The international community and Israel have the same opinion regarding the Hamas government. We don't say we are going to boycott it forever. We say the Hamas government must abide by the obligations the Palestinian Authority has signed.
I understand the importance of political power, so I will use my strength and influence to convince as many people as I can within the party and outside the party that a Palestinian state is bad news for Israel.
Through Hamas, Iran has been able to buy itself a seat on the table in talking about the Palestinian issue. And, as a result, through Hamas it does play a role in the issue of the Palestinians, as strange as that should sound.
The Palestinian society is split into two - those who are openly calling for Israel's destruction like Hamas, and those who are not calling openly for Israel's destruction but refuse to confront those who do. And that's the Palestinian authority. I think they're timid, they're afraid to actually stand up to these killers. And I think that they're afraid, maybe for their own sake, for their own political hides, sometimes for their own physical safety. And they don't take that necessary plunge.
Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'—blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.
If you look at some of the language in the basic writings of Hamas, there is that famous call to push the Israelis into the sea. Now, I would say that most Palestinian politicians on the ground say, of course that's not what we want, and even within Hamas there is some published debate about that claim, but until the claim is removed, it's still noxious.
So long as our land is occupied it is the right of the Palestinian people and their factions to combine resistance and political activities. Resistance and its arms are directed against the occupation while political activity is part of re-arranging the Palestinian home.
Hezbollah and the government are only two of 18 political factions in Lebanon, most of them armed. There are militant Christian groups, Palestinian radicals, al-Qaida, Druze militias and even armed bands of Marxists still operating in Lebanon.
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