A Hamas leader on Saturday said that the draft resolution in favor of Palestinian statehood presented to the UN Security Council was “disastrous,” and that it has “no future in the land of Palestine.”

The leader’s statements come amid growing criticism at home of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ push for the UN to recognize Palestine as a state, as some have called the move a symbolic gesture that distracts from the larger struggle to end the Israeli occupation.

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahhar, however, took a different approach, saying in a statement that Hamas would not accept the resolution because of its focus on the 1967 borders, and not on the entirety of historic Palestine, which includes the lands where Israel today sits.

He said that the movement will only accept the complete borders of the 1948 lands and that the movement refuses to consider allowing to be Jerusalem a capital for both Palestinian and Israeli states.

The statement points to the uphill battle Abbas has at convincing the Palestinian public that pushing the resolution is a useful move, even as he is confronted by pro-Israeli pressure abroad.

Hamas has long maintained that the Israeli occupation must be dated to 1948, when Israel was created through the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in what became Palestine.

Abbas’ Fatah party, however, has focused instead on building a state in the remaining lands of historic Palestine that Israel occupied in 1967 — the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

(Ma’an – www.maannews.net)