Radwan: Dialog Hamas’s strategic option

Dr. Ismail Radwan, one of Hamas”s political leaders in Gaza, has stressed that his Movement was adopting dialog as a strategic option to restore Palestinian national cohesion.

Radwan, addressing a rally in Rafah on Saturday, said that dialog is the only option to rid the Palestinian arena of its internal rift.

He opined, however, that any national concord agreement should be approved by Hamas and Fatah at first before tabling it with all factions for endorsement.

The Hamas leader noted that the Egyptian reconciliation draft did not tackle any of the national constants such as the right of return, Jerusalem and others.

Political detention should come to an end before the start of any national dialog, Radwan underlined, adding that Hamas told Egypt that no dialog could start in light of the political detention sweep in the West Bank.

Dr. A”ed Yaghi, one of the political leaders of the national initiative bloc which organized the rally, said that a comprehensive national dialog should be based on mutual respect.

He said that preliminary steps should be taken such as the immediate end to hostile media campaigns and the political detention in addition to opening institutions that were closed and announcing readiness to backtrack on all unilateral steps that were made especially those infringing on the basic law.

The dialog should end up with forming a national unity government enjoying the PLC support and national unanimity in addition to re-structuring and re-building the PLO to include all forces including the initiative, Hamas and Jihad, Yaghi said, and called for fundamental changes in the PA security apparatuses.