New Hamas document supports Palestinian state along 1967 borders

Islamic Hamas movement presented a new political document in which it said it accepts the establishment of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders in the West bank and Gaza Strip.

Khaled Meshaal, Hamas chief, announced the new program in a news conference held in the Qatari city of Doha.

However, the new document insisted on not to recognize Israel and said Hamas will fight "the Zionists" who occupied the land of Palestine, "but the movement respects the Jews and has no problem with them or with other religions."

Hamas said it still considered armed struggle as the only mean to liberate all Palestine (Israel and the Palestinian) territories."

Meanwhile, Meshaal said his movement now "doesn't have any administrative or organizational relationship with the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood Movement," of which it used to be a part.

He also said that his movement is "Palestinian national liberation movement that adopts the moderate, or median Islam," adding that this point is the first in the new amended covenant of Hamas.

Over the past few years, several Arab states as well as Israel, the United States and Europe had considered Hamas movement, which was born in Gaza in December 1987, as an extension and part of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement.

Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party had repeatedly asked Hamas to isolate itself from the Muslim Brothers.

The movement's new political document, according to Meshaal, is an upgraded one to the covenant founded in 1987 that fits the political changes, which developed in the region within the last ten years. Endit