Hamas’ political wing official Salah al-Bardawil renewed his party’s pledge to not go forward with forming a unilateral government should the party win over a dashing majority in the upcoming Legislative Council elections.
“I want to reassure everyone—despite currently securing 60 percent of the council’s seats, and have the right to form a government and do what we want-- we do not want to bring the Palestinian people into a new wave of inhumane pressure,” said Bardawil in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat.
Bardawil is also a Hamas member at the Palestinian Legislative Council.
“We are now ready to activate the Legislative Council on the basis of consensus and not majority.”
“Decision-making is bound to the mechanism of consensus and cannot advance in its absence. We are working on the basis of no winner or loser.”
On the other hand, he mentioned that Hamas remains committed to redrafting its program and reshape its movement.
Commenting on the recent Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement, Bardawil says that even though he partook in the Cairo-sponsored talks and is willing to share in government with the Ramallah-based party, he still disagrees with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
He accused the PLO of “losing 78 percent of Palestinian lands”.
In the exclusive, Bardawil admitted to Hamas’ arms-link with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group.
Even though Bardawil made a stark statement on the Hamas-Hezbollah military collaboration, he refused to give any further details.
However, Bardawil cited a disagreement between the two concerning Syria.
“Regardless of the nature of the military secrets, but we differed at a moment regarding the Syrian issue.”
“Hezbollah and Iran were angry, even though we only meant for them to stay out of the muddled situation in Syria and not interfere-- we offered this as a recommendation.”
“Nevertheless, we do not deny that cooperation exists between "Hezbollah" and "Hamas."
Hamas has long slashed all attempts at disarming its military wing, and continues to do so in the post-reconciliation talks.
“In 2006, we agreed that there should be a national partnership in deciding on peace and war, in the sense that we affirm that the resistance is the right of the Palestinian people, but this resistance is not carried out unilaterally by a faction,” Bardawil noted.
“Rather, we emphasize on rationalizing the resistance and subjecting it to a comprehensive national decision,” he explained.
Bardawil said that the political process among Palestinians should be an all-inclusive one.
“Abu Mazen (Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) is not allowed to unilaterally negotiate with the occupation (Israel),” Bardawil commented.
He went on accusing Abbas of pursuing full control over the Palestinian decision-making process whether it be on negotiating with Israel or the choice of resorting to war.
“This is unacceptable,” Bardawil argued.
“Consequently, it is difficult to subject the resistance’s arms power to a collective decision, unless the Palestinian president fully adheres to a true partnership on the decision of war and peace.”
“This is what we believe.”
