Hamas’s statements indicated both that its military operations during the Second Intifada were limited to the goal of liberating the occupied territories, rather than to the destruction of Israel, and that the movement was ready to end violence in return for an end to the occupation. In this way, Hamas accepted the notion of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, much as the PLO had done before it, without conceding the goal of liberating historic Palestine by recognizing Israel.
