In a dramatic but quite unexpected development, a senior member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mustafa Barghouti, in an interview to explain the Palestine perspective on the Hamas-Israel conflict, has revealed that Hamas has offered a two-part exchange of prisoners to Israel, adding that if it’s accepted by Prime Minister Netanyahu peace could be restored within 24-36 hours.Mustafa Barghouti, who is also general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, said the exchange of prisoners offered by Hamas was a two-part arrangement. First, Hamas is prepared to hand back all Israeli civilian prisoners in return for all Palestinian women prisoners in Israeli jails. The second part is that Hamas is prepared to return all Israeli military prisoners in their custody in return for all male Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Barghouti said Qatar and Egypt are acting as intermediaries. He believes that they have already contacted the Netanyahu government. The response from Tel Aviv is awaited.Barghouti said if this exchange of prisoners is accepted by Israel peace could be restored within 24-36 hours.Barghouti also said that the killing of some 250 Israeli teenagers attending the Supernova Festival was wrong and the people who did it must be brought to account.Third, Barghouti said that Prime Minister Modi’s statement expressing solidarity with Israel and characterising the Hamas attack as terrorism has “hurt” the Palestinian people. He said, “We feel sorry that Modi made his statement.”Barghouti said that the traditional Indian position from Mahatma Gandhi onwards was support for the Palestinian cause and Palestinian people would have hoped that would continue.I’m only giving you the main points of this 30-minute interview. There’s a lot more that Barghouti has said particularly with regard to explaining how the Palestinians view what has happened and why Hamas acted as they did and when it did. His very first answer explains in detail the background from the Palestinian perspective, something you will not get from the Western media.If you want to see things from the Palestinian point of view, I would recommend you watch this interview. Barghouti is an extremely eloquent man.You can watch the interview here.
