PRESIDENT ABBAS DEFENDS RECONCILIATION WITH HAMAS
Al-Quds (Jerusalem), 25 Jumadil Akhir 1435/25 April 2014 (MINA) – The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas defended the reconciliation agreement signed with Hamas saying the agreement does not contradict peace talks with Israel.
The agreement drew sharp criticism from Israeli officials who said the move reveals the Palestinians’ lack of desire to achieve peace, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Abbas as saying: “The Palestinian people’s interest to preserve the unity of their land and people will contribute to strengthening and promoting the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.”
Abbas pointed out that such a move backed by international and Arab bodies will enhance the Palestinian negotiators’ ability to complete the two-state solution. This, he said, is fully consistent with the Arab peace initiative and the accords of Mecca, Doha and Cairo as well as with international legitimacy and the United Nations General Assembly resolution in 2012 to recognise the State of Palestine as a an observer state based on the 1967 borders.
The president noted that there is no contradiction between signing the Palestinian reconciliation agreement and the peace negotiations with Israel saying “we are committed to establishing a just peace based on the two-state solution in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy”.
In response to the agreement Israel’s prime minister’s office announced its decision to cancel the Israeli negotiating session, scheduled for today, between the Israeli and Palestinian negotiation teams under the auspices of the US envoy Martin Indyk in Jerusalem.
Several Israeli officials have sharply criticised the reconciliation agreement including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said Abbas should choose between peace with Israel or with Hamas.
Netanyahu told reporters during his meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz: “Does he [Abbas] want peace with Hamas or with Israel? Abbas cannot make peace with Hamas and with Israel. I hope he chooses peace which has not done until now.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denounced the agreement saying: “You cannot make peace with Israel and also with Hamas – the terrorist organisation that calls to eliminate Israel.”
Lieberman said: “Signing a unity government agreement of Fatah and Hamas means signing the end of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s Minister of the Economy Naftali Bennett said: “Hamas will continue to kill Jews and Abu Mazen [Abbas] will continue to demand the liberalisation of the murderers. Those who believe that Abu Mazen is a partner should reconsider their positions.”
Transport Minister Yisrael Katz said that what happened today is “uniting forces between Abu Mazen and Hamas. The common denominator between them is hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. This is a slap in the face of the United States and its Secretary of State. Abu Mazen said no to peace, no to real negotiations.”
Abbas says reconciliation, peace do not contradict
Mahmoud Abbas said that there is no contradiction between a reconciliation deal his group signed with the resistance movement Hamas and peace talks with Israel.
“We are committed to making peace,” Abbas said in his first comment on the deal.
“An internationally and Arab-backed reconciliation will boost Palestinian negotiators on achieving the two-state solution,” Abbas was quoted by the official Palestinian news agency as saying.
Earlier Wednesday, Hamas and Fatah hammered out a reconciliation deal in the Gaza Strip, bringing to an end a rift that persisted between the two Palestinian movements since 2007.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the agreement between the rival factions as a move that “kills peace,” but senior Palestinian official Saeb Erakat blamed Israeli settlement activity for killing off the process, Ma’an News reported.
“Netanyahu’s government has been asked for years to choose between peace and settlements and it chose settlements,” Erakat told AFP.
On Wednesday, the Palestine Liberation Organization — internationally recognized as the sole representative of the Palestinian people — and the Gaza Strip’s Islamist Hamas rulers signed a reconciliation agreement.
Israel’s security cabinet announced in response on Thursday it would “not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas” and vowed “measures” in response, but did not elaborate.
“The pact with Hamas kills peace,” Netanyahu told NBC television shortly after the Israeli cabinet decision.
In his first comment on a deal between rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that whoever chooses Hamas does not want peace, Anadolu report.
Netanyahu said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has to choose between making peace with Israel and making peace with Hamas, describing the Islamist movement as a “terrorist” organization that wants to destroy Israel.
Meanwhile, Chief Israeli negotiator and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni struck a solemn tone on Facebook Wednesday night, calling the reconciliation agreement signed between Hamas and Fatah “a bad step”.
“At this very hour, I was supposed to be at a meeting with the Palestinians aimed at continuing the negotiations, after there was progress in talks yesterday,” Livni posted on Facebook, Time of Israel report.
“The reconciliation agreement that Mahmoud Abbas signed with Hamas is a bad step, which not only caused the cancelation of the meeting, but cast a heavy shadow on the possibility to progress.” (T/P09/E01).
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).
