Hamas leader in Gaza calls on Egypt to open blockade

Zahar says Egypt should renegotiate peace treaty with Israel; calls int'l armed presence in Sinai an "injustice."

By JPOST.COM STAFF, LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI
mahmoud zahar 311 (photo credit: AP)
mahmoud zahar 311
(photo credit: AP)
Hamas leader in Gaza Mahmoud al-Zahar called on Egypt to provide electricity and water to the Gaza Strip and to open the Rafah Crossing to allow free movement of goods and vehicles to and from the territory , Israel Radio reported on Monday.
Zahar said Egypt should reopen its peace treaty with Israel for negotiation so that it may be permitted to deploy troops throughout the Sinai Peninsula.
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He referred to the armed international presence in Sinai, mandated under the treaty, as well as Egypt selling its natural gas to Israel as "injustices" done to the Egyptian people.
In a radio interview with Jerusalem-based investigative reporter Aaron Klein on WABC Radio New York Sunday, Zahar said the Muslim Brotherhoodis "the most moderate organization, the most democratic organization, even more than the Western people."
He added, "Don't search for the devil," saying "the problem in the West is they are afraid from the Muslim Brotherhood because they know nothing about them.”
"They can achieve more than that, but now in the expected era, they are going to participate only by one third of their power….This is the first step, but they are going to participate in the local councils in order to serve the people and to reconstruct what was destroyed by the corrupt systems."
Zahar continued discussing what he said was the inevitable decline of the US "empire," saying, "any state without morality will not survive. Morality is not only having money, morality is having justice. You are not implementing the justice."
"You are going sooner or later to suffer from the same problem when your power decreases and the power of others, for example, China, India, Japan, as your history [shows] becomes more supreme," he said.
“Look to the British empire. Look to the French empire. Look to the German power. What was the cause of their destruction? Their immoralities. So I am not here fabricating or inventing a story or a theory, this is well known."