Fatah and Hamas appear to have more that unites them than divides them. Photo: Suhaib Salem-Pool.

A Senior Hamas official said that his organization wants reconciliation efforts with the PLO to be based on the Palestinian Arab demand for a right of return, a demand that if implemented would effectively bring about the end of Israel as a Jewish state, as well the absence of recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

Ahmed Bahar made the statements Thursday, according to Ma’an News Agency.

“We want a real unity among the Palestinian people in order to stand in a row in front of the Israeli occupation and prevent it from carrying out its settlement projects  and Judaization of Jerusalem,” Bahar said, according to a translation.

Since the end of the recent conflict in November between Israel and terrorists in Gaza, Hamas and the PA have made no secret of their interest in reconciling after their acrimonious split in 2007. Recent polls have shown support for the reconciliation process, as well as for Hamas’s leadership, has grown in recent months.

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Bahar also stressed his mantra that resistance was the only path, saying that a return to negotiations would be futile as attempts at talks in the past twenty years “did not achieve anything.”

Bahar also boasted that Israel has been unable to bring down the Hamas government in Gaza, or even weaken the “resistance” against the Jewish state.