PLO ambassador Areikat on Hamas, Palestinian recognition of Israel

His excellency Maen Rashid Areikat, chief representative of the PLO Delegation to the US, fielded questions from a skeptical audience in a March 9 discussion at NYU's Center for Global Affairs. Hamas was a major concern: Israel supposedly can't deal with Hamas because it has never accepted Israel, has a violent charter, and is now part of a dysfunctional unity government. Areikat noted that Israel has cabinet ministers (and now a prime minister) who say they will never accept a Palestinian state. He then urged his listeners to see the situation from Hamas' point of view: the PLO recognized Israel in 1992 and revised its national charter in 1996. At Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's request, in 1998 the PA again recognized Israel. Yet the situation has only deteriorated. Israel is in the Middle East. In order to be a natural country in that part of the world, Areikat observed, Israel needs to make peace with its neighbors and not pretend to be European.