Hamas Political Bureau Chief Khalid Mish’al, November 5, Damascus:
The United States today is not the same as it was 10 years ago. Israel today is a different Israel than that of 10 years ago. The forces of resistance and opposition today are different than those of 10 years ago. The awareness of the people and the masses is not the same as that of 10 years ago. Therefore, this is an important matter. The United States today does not have the same might as at the beginning of the 1990’s.
Today there are heads competing with the United States, elbowing their way against it to the top, and rebelling against it at different levels, from Russia, China, Latin America, to the free forces in the so-called Middle East, that is the forces of the Arab and Islamic nation. Even in Europe, there is some level of unease and a desire to keep slip away from the grip of the selfish US policy, which does not even provide manoeuvring space to some western powers, let alone giving such manoeuvring space to forces in the east and some feeble people in the Middle East who think they are friends of the United States.
Israel today, after its humiliating withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2004, and after the slap in the face it received in the summer of 2006, Israel today is not the same Israel as that of 10 years ago. Unfortunately, some insist ”¦. The United States aspires to live through what is not its property, to live as it used to live 10 years ago. As God Almighty said, they “love that they should be praised for what they have not done.” But there are some in the region who still insist on dealing with this lie. They are cheating themselves and others.