Borders

An interesting short article in The Economist about the Hamas attitude to recognition of Israel:

Many members of Hamas say that they will not recognise Israel's right to exist and may not do so even if Israel were to withdraw right back to the pre-1967 “green line”. The official ideology of Hamas is clear enough. It refuses in principle the idea of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine at all. Israel's position, on the other hand, is that it accepts the right of the Palestinians to a state in the West Bank and Gaza, but says that the final border should be set by negotiation. (Although Israel also says it wants to keep some of the West Bank’s land for existing settlements and security purposes.) There may be another reason for Hamas's intransigence that has nothing to do with Israel's stance: recognising Israel could lose it the support of its biggest foreign ally, Iran

In practice, if Hamas really were ready to strike a deal, and if the two sides ever were to sit down to talk about peace, they could probably work out a land-swap formula that compensates the Palestinians for the bits that Israel wants to keep. But to guarantee this, the Palestinians want the 1967 lines recognised in principle as a way to guarantee a fair swap.

The whole of the article is worth reading.