Hamas rejects support of al-Zawahri
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-06 08:49

"No one has the right, whether a Palestinian or not, to abandon a grain of soil from Palestine which was a Muslim land that was occupied by infidels. It is the duty of every Muslim to work on getting it back," he said.

In place of negotiations, he said, was "the path of prophets and messengers, which is ... jihad, until the soil will be liberated and the Islamic states rise again."

He agreed with Hamas' refusal to accept Israel or renounce its violent ideology and rejected President Bush's State of the Union message that the group would lose funding if it did not reform.

"To this regard I have to warn the Muslim brothers in Palestine. ... We know for sure that Palestine will not be liberated by the elections, but by jihad," al-Zawahri said. "I would like to tell my brothers in Palestine that reaching power is needed to implement Islamic rule."

But in what was seen by some as criticism of Hamas for running in elections, he said: "Entering with those who have sold Palestine, the legislative council, and recognizing their selling, stands against Islam."

Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, told Al-Jazeera his group was elected through its moderate approach to Islam, which did not compare to al-Qaida's exclusionary tactics.

"We are not a movement that labels people infidels or that abandons them. We are a movement that lives the realities of the people and that uses wisdom ... to turn them to Islam," he said.

"When Hamas entered parliament, it did so under the slogan: Islam is the solution. When the people decided to vote for it, they believed that Islam can solve their economic, social and political problems as well their military battles against the occupation."

He said Hamas has proved through its good behavior and its resistance to the occupation "that it is fit to be the leader of this street."

Al-Zawahri also criticized the West for the insulting drawings of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and said Muslims were obliged to "confront the Crusaders' campaign against Islam with hands, tongues, facts and spears."

Al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, has issued several video and audiotapes in the past year. His last video came on Jan. 31, in which he threatened a new attack against the United States.

Bin Laden and al-Zawahri are believed to be in hiding along the rugged Pakistan-Afghan border.