Shaul Mishal

Shaul Mishal (Hebrew: שאול משעל; born 1945) is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Tel Aviv University.

It is this Islamic vision, combined with its nationalist claims and militancy toward Israel, that accounts for the prevailing image of Hamas as a rigid movement, ready to pursue its goals at any cost, with no limits or constraints .

Rather, it operates in a context of opportunities and constraints, conflicting interests, and cost-benefit considerations, and is attentive to the fluctuating needs and desires of the Palestinian population and cognizant of power relations and political feasibility.

Mishal asserts that Hamas's electoral victory over the Fatah-led nationalist camp is not merely an act of transfer of power but a mandate for regime change.

Regime change, unlike transfer of power, entails a revision of the fundamental principles of government and the overall goals of the Palestinian Authority − a redefinition of the PA's regional and international policies, as well as its basic parameters and red lines concerning its approach to Israel.

[citation needed] The Islam-driven worldview spawns several principles, first of all, a commitment to territorial maximalism with an eye towards the establishment of an Islamic state throughout all of Mandatory Palestine.

This vision replaces the political realism that accepts the framework of a two-state solution, Israel alongside a Palestinian state.

In an address to a group of European MPs, The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

[citation needed] since the Palestinians continued to lack a state, they were unable to build a centralized institutions and a hierarchical political order.

[citation needed] The 1993 Declaration of Principles (the first, in a series of agreements that came to be known as the Oslo Accords) signed between Israel and the PLO was followed by the establishment of the PA in May 1994.

[5] Shiites, says conventional wisdom, seek to convert the Sunni world, take over the Middle East or simply bomb Israel into the Stone Age.

[citation needed] Life in a state of discrepancy encourages Shiite leaders to reject the notion that reality begins with abstract ideas.