Mr. Hamad is the spokesman for the current Hamas-led Palestinian government. He was a long-time editor of Al Risala, the Hamas weekly newspaper in Gaza City. This article, initially published on August 27, 2006, in Arabic in Al Ayyam, a Palestian newspaper associated with the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, drew immediate international attention, not least in the Israeli press. The article was translated for Middle East Policy by Ghassan Fawzi and Roger Gaess.