Hamas official calls for Palestinian federation

A senior Hamas official expressed support for a federation that would unite Palestinians in Gaza with those in the PA-ruled territories. 

A senior Hamas official expressed support over the weekend for the creation of a Palestinian federation in the Palestinian Authority (PA)-administered areas and the Gaza Strip.

“A federation between the West Bank and Gaza Strip may be better than the ongoing division,” said Mousa Abu Marzouq, vice president of the Hamas Politburo, to the Arabic Al-Ghad channel.

The Palestinians in Gaza have essentially been separated from Palestinians in Judea and Samaria since 2007, when the Hamas terrorist organization successfully launched a coup in Gaza and ousted the PA from the Strip.

Hamas led a brutal uprising against the PA after its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, a member of late terrorist Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, fired a number of elected Hamas officials and ministers in the Palestinian parliament.

There have been several internationally led attempts to reunite the Palestinians into a national unity government, but none have succeeded.

“A federation is one of the forms of government that has united many countries like Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America,” Marzouq added. “It does not matter if the country is small or large. The population of Switzerland is lower than that of Palestine, but it remains united.”

The Fatah party, for the time being, is showing no signs of endorsing or supporting the federation plan promoted by Abu Marzouq.

“What is needed from every nationalist on the Palestinian street is to support and to ensure success of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s efforts, to end division instead of speaking about a plan for a federation that is more dangerous than the Israeli plan for a state with temporary borders,” said Fatah spokesman Osama Qawasmeh on Saturday.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

Abu MarzouqFatahGazaHamasJudea and SamariaMahmoud AbbasPalestinian Authority