Consider this the one point of agreement between Israel and the terror network that has conducted war against it for nearly 20 years. Although perhaps there could be another point of agreement now as well — that October 7 changed everything. For Israel, it finally woke them from their fantasy that Hamas would turn into a governing entity rather than a genocidal terrorist network.
For Khaled Mashal, it marked the first time that Hamas successfully turned the West into cheerleaders for their genocide, which fuels their fight in Gaza to this day. “From the river to the sea” means exactly what it states, Mashal asserts in this interview caught by MEMRI — and that is a radical-Islamist Palestinian state replacing Israel entirely:
Hamas Leader Abroad Khaled Mashal: We Reject the Two-State Solution; October 7 Has Shown that Liberating Palestine from the River to the Sea Is Realistic and Has Already Begun #Hamas #Israel #Palestinians #Gaza pic.twitter.com/fcnUsbzRN1
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 21, 2024
“I believe that the dream and the hope for Palestine from the River to the Sea and from the north to the south has been renewed. This has also become a slogan chanted in the U.S. and in Western capital cities, by the American and Western public,” he said.
“Palestine is free from the River to the Sea—that’s the slogan of the American students and the [students] in European capital cities.
“The Palestinian consensus—or almost a consensus—is that we will not give up on our right to Palestinian in its entirety, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea and from Rosh Hanikra to Eilat or the Gulf of Aqaba,” he continued.
It’s not as if Hamas has kept this ambition a secret. Its charter still proclaims that mission to this day, and its actions ever since its 2006 electoral win in Gaza continually prove it. They didn’t run for election to govern through the Oslo-based Palestinian Authority, Mashal explains, but to use it as a cover for its terrorist war to destroy Israel. Mashal mocks the very idea that Hamas had ever intended to assume a governing role under the terms of Oslo:
MASHAL: Hamas’ philosophy when it entered the 2006 elections was [that] we wanted to subordinate this authority [the PA}, which was already a fact on the ground, to the service of the people and the resistance. And this is what happened. As soon as we won the 2006 elections, we captured the Israeli soldier Shalit, and the (prisoner) swap deal was in 2011. This was practical evidence that had subordinated its rule (of Gaza) to the service of the resistance, rather than giving up the resistance for the sake of this authority.
It’s difficult for Hamas to make this any clearer. They don’t want peaceful coexistence with Israel in a separate Palestinian state. And just to make that even more clear, Mashal also scoffs at an alternate plan of returning to the 1967 borders to determine the boundaries of a two-state solution. Why should Hamas accept 21% of ‘the Palestinian state’ when it can have 100%?
MASHAL: Why should the Palestinian agree to a fifth of Palestine, and accept it as a final solution?
Q: A fifth of Palestine is the 1967 borders?
MASHAL: The 1967 borders. The ’67 borders are 21%, a fifth of Palestine, so no.
Q: So what you are telling me is that after October 7th we don’t agree to ’67 borders? We want Palestine from the river to the sea?
MASHAL: No.
Why should they, when throngs of useful idiots in America mindlessly chant their genocidal slogans in support of Hamas terrorism? When the streets of London fill with Hamas fellow-travelers in terror to demand Israel’s surrender to Mashal? When the US and UK keep applying pressure on Israel to stop fighting back against Hamas and give them a sovereign base from which to continue their genocidal actions? Hamas went on a rampage of slaughter, rape, and kidnapping, and while it resulted in punishing losses in war, it has also bolstered their standing in the West. Mashal’s not inaccurate in that assessment of the political outcome of October 7.
Israeli journalist tries to spell it out for those still under the Hamas spell:
Hamas leader Khaled Mashal proudly states that “we reject the two-state solution idea. Our goal is clear, a Palestinian state from the river to the sea, from north to south.”
How many times must we tell you: Hamas has one goal and that is the complete and utter destruction of… pic.twitter.com/VzwaLb2fJk
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) January 22, 2024
How many times must we tell you: Hamas has one goal and that is the complete and utter destruction of Israel.
When you scream “from the river to the sea,” you are chanting for the genocide, erasure, and ethnic cleansing of an indigenous people, the Jewish people, from their land.
You are siding with an evil that would not hesitate to do the same to you.
Indeed, and that’s literally true about America too. Hamas’ sponsors in Tehran routinely promise “death to America.” Only Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and their Obama-administration minders refuse to take that either seriously or literally.