For any who are still curious why Israel doesn’t simply acquiesce to Palestinian demands for an independent state and end the conflict, Hamas once again happily provided the answer in a revealing interview with Arab media last week.

Hamas, trying to fulfill its credo to destroy Israel.

Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar told the Ramallah-based Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam that if his group could “transfer what it has [in Gaza] or just a small part of it to the West Bank, we would be able to settle the battle of the final promise [to destroy Israel] with a speed that no one can imagine.”

Recently, Western power brokers, chief among them US President Barack Obama, have tried to differentiate between Hamas and the Islamic extremists of ISIS (now known simply as the Islamic State).

But al-Zahar was not shy in admitting that Hamas’ goals are largely synonymous with those of ISIS, if only on a smaller scale.

“[Some] have said Hamas wants to create an Islamic emirate in Gaza. We won’t do that, but we will build an Islamic state in Palestine, all of Palestine,” said al-Zahar.

Those pushing Israel to relinquish the West Bank (biblical Judea and Samaria) might argue that Hamas can dream all it likes, but that it is the “moderate” Palestinian Authority that would rule an independent Palestinian state.

What they forget is that Hamas has already demonstrated that democracy is no obstacle to its ambitions.

Hamas handily won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. And when it was denied the power due it, Hamas turned its guns on the Palestinian Authority and swiftly seized control of Gaza.

Recent polls have suggested Hamas would repeat that feat in the West Bank were Israel to withdraw its forces and uproot the Jewish settlements there.

A survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research last week revealed that if elections were held today, Gaza-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would become the new president of the Palestinian Authority, beating out current President Mahmoud Abbas by a margin of 55 percent-to–38 percent.

The poll demonstrated that support for Hamas is high in the West Bank, giving credence to al-Zahar’s threat to transfer the groups military capabilities and more severely threaten the Jewish state’s major population centers.

[Translation of Arabic media provided by Palestinian Media Watch.]

View original Israel Today publication at: http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/25391/Default.aspx