Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat is prepared to include Hamas and Islamic Jihad in a new leadership organization that would function alongside the Palestinian Authority, senior PA officials said Tuesday.

The PA daily Al-Ayyam said Arafat is willing to include Hamas and Islamic Jihad in a united national leadership that would be established soon. The paper did not specify what the new organization's function would be.

The United States, however, has warned the Palestinian administration against inviting the Hamas to join its ranks, reported IBA news Wednesday morning.

The Hamas is a terror organization, the message said, and must be boycotted.

A source in the Prime Minister's Office dismissed the move as a desperate bid by Arafat to stay in power.

"Arafat will do anything to stay in power, to get away from the isolation that he finds himself in," said the source. "Instead of issuing statements as to whether he will accept reforms, he is moving further to the extreme and wants to join forces with an organization that very clearly does not want any negotiations with Israel or compromises. It shows the man has learned nothing."[...]

Article Eight: The Slogan of the Hamas Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief.

Article Eleven: The Strategy of Hamas: Palestine is an Islamic Waqf
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it...

Article Thirteen: Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences
[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad: “Allah is the all-powerful, but most people are not aware.”...

Article Thirty-Two: ...For Zionist scheming has no end, and after Palestine they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates. Only when they have completed digesting the area on which they will have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion, etc. Their scheme has been laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there. Leaving the circle of conflict with Israel is a major act of treason and it will bring curse on its perpetrators...