WASH. POST PUBLISHES EDITORIAL BY HAMAS

Haniyeh blasts Israel in Op-Ed (JTA)

The Palestinian Authority prime minister wrote an Op-Ed in The Washington Post assailing Israel. In his article published Tuesday, titled "Aggression Under False Pretenses," Ismail Haniyeh blamed Israel for the recent flare-up in violence in the Gaza Strip and argued that Palestinian terrorist attacks are acts of "resistance."

While calling on Americans to rethink their support for Israel, Haniyeh also said he wants "meaningful negotiations" on Palestinian statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, but says the dispute is about "the core 1948 issues" surrounding the creation of the Jewish state — not the "occupation" that began in 1967.

Haniyeh reiterated his proposal for an extended truce under which "the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region" — although, according to the philosophy laid out in Hamas charter, Israeli Jews are not Semites.

CHECK OUT THE DATELINE ON THE EDITORIAL : "GAZA, PALESTINE."