MIDDLE EAST: The issue of Israel's right to exist continues to bedevil attempts to renew stalled Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, writes Michael Jansen
Hopes that Palestinian-Israeli negotiations might be renewed after the Palestinian parliamentary elections were dashed when acting Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said he would not deal with the Palestinian Authority if Hamas forms or is represented in the government.
Mr Olmert's declaration coincided with consultations in Cairo yesterday on the formation of a government between Hamas figures from Gaza and the diaspora.
His hard line matches that laid down by Hamas. In response to calls from the EU and US to recognise Israel and end armed resistance, Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based head of the movement's politburo, asserted: "Your attempt to force us to give up our principles or our struggle is in vain."
Hamas's charter, adopted in 1988, says that Palestine is an Islamic waqf, or religious trust, and no part of the country can be renounced or abandoned; only jihad, holy war, can resolve the Palestine problem; and the state of Israel must be eliminated.
Following Hamas's victory, the "Quartet" - the US, EU, UN, and Russia - spelled out the steps Hamas should take before a government led by or containing Hamas members would be accepted and funded. "All members of the future Palestinian government must be committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the road map."
Hamas demonstrated a positive stance on two of the conditions by saying that it would extend indefinitely the current ceasefire and that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), to which Hamas does not belong, should remain the Palestinians' representative in negotiations.
Although Hamas has also said it is ready to negotiate with Israel "without preconditions", the movement refuses to recognise Israel, as the PLO has done, and has pledged to review commitments made by the PLO to see if they serve Palestinian interests.
The "Quartet" adopted the European formulation "recognition of Israel" while President Bush continues to insist that Hamas must "support the right of Israel to exist."
His demand is derived from UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22nd, 1967, which states that regional peace should involve respect for the "right [ of every state in the area] to exist within secure and recognised boundaries".
Under international law no state has a specified "right to exist". Palestinians argue that if they recognise Israel's "right to exist" it would confer an exceptional moral status on Israel and negate their right to strive for independence in their homeland. The late president Yasser Arafat said that he would "never" recognise Israel's "right to exist". None of his successors would dare break this taboo.
The issue of recognition is complicated by the fact that Israel does not have fixed boundaries on all fronts. Until it concluded peace treaties with Arab states - Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 - Israel refused to define any of its borders. Those with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians are still formally undefined.
In 1981 Israel annexed the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, setting a de facto border in Golan province, and in 2000 Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon to the frontier set after the first World War.
When Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza last year, it fixed the border between the Strip and Israeli territory. Israel has annexed East Jerusalem but left undefined its boundary in the West Bank, where the wall and settlements are encroaching on Palestinian land in violation of international law barring an occupying power from colonising occupied territory.
The PLO rejects Israel's territorial expansion and demands the entire Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, 22 per cent of geographic Palestine, for its state.
Before his assassination by Israel in 2004, Hamas' spiritual mentor Sheikh Ahmad Yassin ruled that the PLO state could be accepted as the first stage in the liberation of Palestine, suggesting a willingness to go for the two-state solution.
But Hamas's current leaders do not appear to be as flexible as Sheikh Yassin.