Hamas 'won't honour Israel peace treaty'

In an interview with the US based Jewish daily, Forward, a Hamas official states that he has nothing against Jews in general, but only against those “who occupied my land”. Mousa Abu Marzook, who is Hamas’s deputy politburo chief, told Forward that Israel and the Palestinians should reach a ceasefire agreement without Hamas recognising Israel as a state. He also stressed that the Islamist movement will not honour any peace treaty with Israel. In an interview with the US-based Jewish daily, Abu Marzook said, "We will not recognise Israel as a state. It will be like the relationship between Lebanon and Israel or Syria and Israel." The Hamas official also proposed establishing a relationship between the two states in historic Palestinian as a buffer between both sides. He stated that: “It’s better than war, better than the continuous resistance against the occupation, better than Israel occupying the West Bank and Gaza and making all these difficulties and problems on both sides”. Abu Marzook also said that he distinguishes between Jews living in Israel and Jews in the US. He added: "We don’t have anything against the Jewish religion or against the Jew as a human being”. He continued by saying that: "The problem is that the Israelis kicked out my family. They have occupied my land and injured thousands of Palestinians. I have to differentiate between the Jew who did this to my people and (American) Jews like you, who never did anything bad to my people." Abu Marzook was deported from the US in the mid 1990s, after Hamas was officially classified as a "terrorist organisation" by the US State Department. He then moved to Damascus and has since served as Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal's deputy.