Hüseyin İmir, Foreign Relations President of HÜDA PAR (Free Cause Party), has issued a scathing condemnation of the declaration from the High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, held in New York.

In a statement on Thursday, İmir said the declaration is “incomplete, one-sided, and blind to the ongoing occupation and crimes of Israel,” criticizing it for calling on Hamas to disarm while failing to address Israel’s decades-long blockade, occupation, and systematic human rights violations.

İmir strongly rejected the narrative that the crisis began with the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, 2023: “Even before 7 October, hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed by Zionist occupation forces in the West Bank. Illegal settlements continued to expand in violation of international law, and despite condemnations by global institutions, no concrete measures were taken to stop the crimes.”

He warned that the signatory states of the New York declaration have “fallen into the trap of Israeli propaganda” by holding Hamas solely responsible while ignoring the historical context and the root cause of the conflict—the occupation itself.

İmir dismissed the idea of handing Gaza’s administration to Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority as unrealistic and illegitimate: “The Abbas administration cannot even move freely on its own territory without Israeli permission. It has remained silent in the face of Israeli attacks in the West Bank, and has even collaborated in dismantling resistance camps in certain cases.”

He stressed that any plan to replace Hamas with an administration that operates under Israeli influence “betrays the will of the Palestinian people.”

According to İmir, the demand to disarm Palestinian resistance is part of a calculated plan to strip Palestinians of their right to self-defense and erase the Palestinian cause: “This is exactly what Zionist officials openly state. The so-called two-state solution rhetoric is being used to buy time and to legitimize the current occupation regime.”

İmir also criticized Muslim countries that signed the declaration: “The signatures of Muslim countries will go down in history not as a stand for the oppressed, but as support for Zionist propaganda. Remaining silent while children are being slaughtered in Gaza, and legitimizing the occupation through soft language, is both shameful and a betrayal of human dignity.”

İmir underlined that Hamas is not only a resistance movement but also a legitimate, elected political authority: “Hamas won the last general elections in 2006 with overwhelming support from the Palestinian people. As the elected representative of the people, it is the only legitimate authority today. When a free and sovereign Palestinian state is established, all resistance forces will hand over arms to the legitimate national army. Until then, supporting Hamas is both an Islamic duty and a legal obligation.”

İmir warned that portraying Hamas as a terrorist organization only serves to “legitimize Israeli occupation, criminalize supporters of the Palestinian cause, and leave the people defenseless.” (ILKHA)