Unlike the June 15, 2008 article headline in the New York Times, "A Year Reshapes Hamas and Gaza," the body of the article testifies to the fact that neither are the case.The article's author, Ethan Bronner, tries to demonstrate that the "long-term truce" that Hamas would offer if Israel merely agreed to return to the 1967 borders (in other words, give up front all that Hamas wants in return for a temporary truce) is a major advancement on their part.
Furthermore, Bronner concedes that this new Hamas position is not so different from the rest of the Arab world's view on peace talks with Israel. That is, a peace deal is temporary because Israel exists as a fact and is therefore recognized. It is not because they want peace or because Israel is accepted. It is simply a recognition of an unfortunate fact with the desire to see the state destroyed later, once Arab power is restored to its imagined, past glory:
Whereas Hamas says it will never recognize Israel, its leaders say that if Israel returned to the 1967 borders, granted a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and dealt with the rights of refugees, Hamas would declare a long-term truce. This is not that different from what the rest of the Arab world says or the Fatah position in peace talks with Israel. Jawad Tibi, a health minister under the Fatah government and a Fatah advocate in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, is angry at Hamas. Still, he said, “Hamas is talking about a 30-year truce which is no different really from what we want. Hamas is Fatah with beards.” Sayed Abu Musameh is one of the founders of Hamas and now a member of the legislature. One of the old guard moderates, he is also on the board of Hamas’s first research organization just opening here. It is called Beit al Hikma, the House of Wisdom, and seeks to build bridges with the West. “We are not seeking all of Palestine, only the ’67 borders,” he said. “Then there would be a truce for a very long period to pave the way for the next generation to resolve the issues we are paralyzed to resolve.”
The issue that they are paralyzed to resolve is the return of the refugees to Israel and Israel's destruction. They are asking to be given a gun back after trying to kill someone while offering a few years to procure more bullets and improve their aim in return.
However, as her line above explains, it is not Israel's occupation - although they hope the West will buy this. It, of course, is Israel's existence they don't accept otherwise there would be peace rather than a truce if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders.Noha Abu Ramadan, an office manager, typifies Hamas’s supporters. Covered in Muslim modesty, she efficiently works a telephone, fax machine and cellphone while greeting a pair of visitors. “Isn’t it nice to have such light traffic?” she joked about the lack of fuel. “It keeps the accident rate down.” Asked her view on how things were going, she grew more serious. “Israel is trying to pressure us to make us forget that the real problem is the occupation,” she said. “Hamas was elected like any government and never given the chance to govern. Life is hard here but it has never exactly been perfect. We can take it. The Koran teaches that in the end we will be victorious.”
The title to the New York Times article should have read: "Hamas and Gaza emerge as radical as ever if not moreso after a year."
But truth may not sell papers as well.