Following is an excerpt from an interview with Muhammad Dahlan, former PA security chief in Gaza, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on August 4, 2009.
Muhammad Dahlan: First of all, the store of lies told by Hamas officials is a bottomless pit. No one raised the issue of recognizing Israel or any other political issue in any previous meeting. I have said openly that Fatah itself did not recognize Israel, but that it was the PLO that recognized Israel. Therefore, we did not and will not demand that Hamas as a political, or fascist, movement recognize Israel or not. This is Hamas’s business, since the Fatah movement did not recognize Israel either.