Pat Dollard | Young Americans

From The Hill.

They(Hamas) know that the Isreali Government would never agree to that stipulation. When reading these stories it helps to remember that their intention is not to have peace but to break Israel, completely.

A Hamas official said Thursday that the party would be inclined to accept a U.S. peace plan if the Obama administration’s outline includes Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

Yousef Rizka, adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told China’s state-run Xinhua news agency that the Islamic movement, which rules the Gaza Strip and is still in a feud with the internationally recognized Fatah government in the West Bank, said any White House peace plan would be analyzed in terms of “the level of meeting the Palestinian rights.”

“We have an initial readiness to accept it and deal with it positively, but we will also reject it if it doesn’t include an American recognition of the Palestinian rights,” Rizka told Xinhua.

“The plan should endorse a Palestinian statehood with Jerusalem as its capital,” Rizka told Xinhua. “Hamas will take an in-depth study of the plan when it is made public.”

Rizka said Hamas would accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel “but only in exchange for a long-term truce” with the Jewish state. “This is a firm position that we can not give up.”

The State Department said at its Aug. 3 briefing that it could be “a matter of weeks” before a peace plan is presented by Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

Read the full story here.