The Hamas movement on September 23 expressed its fear that the campaign Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched for state recognition was just “a media stunt.” Mohammed Awad, the Hamas’ Minister of Planning and Foreign Affairs, said that “Abbas’ insistence on applying to the United Nations for statehood on the 1967 borders is a media campaign that will not reach any significant result.”
Awad said in a press statement that “a successful plan to gain recognition in September must be based on national unity.”
The Hamas minister harshly slammed the international Quartet saying it “impedes the materialisation of a Palestinian state and the Palestinian people’s demands, causes and goals.” The Quartet includes the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. He said that the committee is “biased,” adding that its support for the “Zionist regime is growing.” According to the minister, the committee holds its meetings “but to support the stances of the occupying regime or to soften international pressures on the regime.”