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Following are excerpts from an interview with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, which aired on Al-Jazeera Network on March 2, 2012:
Interviewer: Some say that there cannot be true reconciliation [between Hamas and Fatah] unless there is a strategic change in the ideology of one of the two. Do you think this is true?
Mahmoud Abbas: What do you mean by "ideology"? If you are referring to religious ideology – we are all Muslims, we are all believers. If you are referring to political ideology – let me tell you in all honesty, there are no disagreements between us.
This is evident from the fact that in my past meetings with brother Khaled [Mash'al] and several members of the Hamas political bureau, we agreed on the following points: We agreed that the tahdiya would not pertain to Gaza alone, but to the West Bank as well, we agreed on peaceful popular resistance, we agreed that the 1967 borders would be the borders of the Palestinian state, and we agreed that the negotiations [with Israel] would continue, if Israel agrees to a halt to settlements and accepts our conditions, and we agreed on the issue of elections.
So we do not have… If we are talking about political disagreements, I don't think there are any political disagreements between us. On the contrary, in the most recent meeting of the Palestinian leadership, all parties – and especially Hamas – agreed on popular resistance, peaceful popular resistance, which I describe as peaceful, popular, non-violent demonstrations.
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