25 October 2000

Press release

Commenting on terrorist Barak’s plan to segregate and isolate Palestinian areas, and Clinton’s invitation to both Arafat and Barak to meet him, a responsible source in the Hamas Movement said:

First: Terrorist Barak’s plan to segregate and isolate Palestinian cities and villages comes as a chain in a series of repressive measures against our Palestinian people and an attempt to halt their roaring popular Intifadha. On the other hand the plan further targets pressuring the Palestinian and Arab parties that are still insisting on the settlement process to return to the negotiating table and accept the Zionist conditions and dictates. Despite the racial dimension of such a policy yet it is based on the de facto situation resulting from the Oslo A, B and C agreements, which endorsed retaining the settlements and constructing circular roads around them.

Today as terrorist Barak is continuing his declared war against our unarmed people using missiles, tanks, choppers and artillery to bombard our cities, camps and villages, our people assert with blood, martyrs and solid unity that there is no other road or option but Jihad, struggle and steadfastness to foil the enemy’s measures and aggressive policies.

Second: The reports of Clinton’s invitation to both Arafat and terrorist Barak for separate meetings come as a new attempt to abort the Aqsa Intifadha following the Paris and Sharm Al-Sheikh meetings. Such meetings only target luring the Palestinian Authority chairman into accepting American and Zionist dictates and conditions. The American administration, which compelled the PA to attend the Paris and Sharm Al-Sheikh meetings, is rudely biased in favor of the Zionist enemy. It attempts to justify and conceal the enemy’s suppression and terrorism and equals between our people’s unarmed children who use stones and the enemy’s criminal army that is armed to the teeth with all kinds of weapons and that is shelling our cities and unarmed people with missiles.

We warn the PA chairman against going to that meeting, which is considered by our people as a new conspiracy aimed at aborting the Aqsa Intifadha. And we affirm that our people who offered more than 140 martyrs and five thousand wounded would never accept that price of that blood would be the return of the PA chairman to the negotiating table or an improvement in his negotiating conditions!!!

We, along with our heroic people, wish to emphasize that Jihad, resistance; escalating the blessed Intifadha and the comprehensive popular confrontation against the Zionist enemy were the only means to defend the Aqsa and holy shrines, to grab our rights and to defeat occupation.

The Islamic Resistance Movement
(Hamas – Palestine)
25 October 2000