Netanyahu warns Abbas: Hamas and peace do not go together |
PM Netanyahu condemns Fatah-Hamas deal, says Palestinian Authority President Abbas has chosen to “abandon the path of peace” • Likud officials say Israel should freeze PA funds • U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urges Abbas not to abandon talks.
Mati Tuchfeld, Shlomo Cesana, Daniel Siryoti and News Agencies
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Abbas can’t have it both ways.
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Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi | ||||
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday leveled harsh criticism at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for signing a reconciliation agreement with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and agreeing to head a unity government in preparation for elections in the West Bank and Gaza. Netanyahu said Abbas had chosen to “abandon the path of peace” by implementing the deal with Hamas.
The agreement brokered by Qatar appeared to bring reconciliation — key to any Palestinian statehood ambitions — within reach for the first time since Abbas’ Fatah faction and rival Hamas set up separate governments in the West Bank and Gaza in 2007.
Monday’s deal, signed in the Qatari capital of Doha by Abbas and Mashaal, put an end to recent efforts by the international community to revive long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the terms of Palestinian statehood. Abbas appears to have concluded that he has a better chance of repairing relations with Hamas, shunned by the West as a terror group, then reaching an agreement with Netanyahu.
Netanyahu quickly condemned the Doha deal. “It’s either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel. You can’t have it both ways,” he said at a meeting of his Likud party.
“Hamas is a terrorist organization that strives to destroy Israel, and that is supported by Iran,” Netanyahu said. “I have said many times in the past that the Palestinian Authority must choose between an alliance with Hamas and peace with Israel. Hamas and peace do not go together.”
Netanyahu went on to say that Israel and the international community have made great efforts to advance the peace process in recent weeks, and that Abbas has abandoned the process in favor of partnering with Hamas, without that group “having accepted the minimal conditions of the international community. “Not only does Hamas not recognize Israel and [previously signed] agreements, it has not abandoned terrorism,” Netanyahu said, adding that Hamas continues to amass weapons.
Other Likud leaders also condemned Abbas’ decision, and called for punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority. At the faction meeting, MK Tzipi Hotovely said that Israel should ban the transfer of funds to the Palestinians in the wake of the Doha agreement.
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who in the past has frozen the transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority, said that he would support such a move now as the money transferred to the Palestinian government would effectively be going to Hamas. Others in the political echelon called Abbas’ decision a slap in the face of European mediators working to get Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged Abbas not to abandon talks with Israel despite the agreement between Fatah and Hamas.
Ban “pointed out that the two tracks — of Palestinian reconciliation and negotiations with Israel — should not be seen as contradictory and mutually exclusive,” his spokesman Martin Nesirky said, French news agency AFP reported Tuesday.
Ban, who visited the region last week, said that time was “running out” for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, but that he would not give up on achieving that goal.
The Quartet of international Middle East mediators — the U.S., the U.N., the EU and Russia — has said it would deal with any Palestinian government that renounces violence, recognizes Israel and supports a negotiated peace deal. Abbas has embraced these principles, while Hamas rejects them.
The new Palestinian government is to be made up of politically independent experts, according to the Doha agreement. If headed by Abbas, devoid of Hamas members and run according to his political principles, it could try to make a case to be accepted by the West. Abbas aides said they were optimistic they could win international recognition.
A senior official in Abbas’ bureau told Israel Hayom on Monday that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad had been informed of the decision to create an interim government led by Abbas that would usher in elections.
Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed, who represented his faction’s delegation to Doha, said Monday that the newly appointed government would be announced Feb. 18 in Cairo. Ahmed and Abbas aide Nabil Shaath said they were confident the new government would be based on the Quartet principles. In any case, they said, the interim government’s focus will be to prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections, not to negotiate with Israel. Such elections will not be held in May, as initially envisioned, they said, but could take place several months later.
Palestinian sources said Monday that following the agreement’s signing, an internal dispute erupted between members of Hamas’ exiled political bureau, which has recently left its base in Damascus, and Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip, who have insisted they refuse to relinquish control of the territory to a government headed by Abbas.
Other officials in Ramallah on Monday expressed doubts about the long-term success of the reconciliation deal. One source in Abbas’ bureau told Israel Hayom: “We have a hard time believing this agreement will be implemented. Abbas exploited the fact that Mashaal and Hamas’ political bureau are in an uncomfortable situation since they left Damascus.”
In Washington, State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. was seeking more information about what was agreed, and that reconciliation was an internal matter for Palestinians.
“What matters to us are the principles that guide a Palestinian government going forward, in order for them to be able to play a constructive role for peace and building an independent state,” Nuland said. “Any Palestinian government must unambiguously and explicitly commit to nonviolence,” she said. “It must recognize the state of Israel. And it must accept the previous agreements and obligations between the parties, including the road map. So those are our expectations.”
Nuland declined to say if the Fatah-Hamas arrangement would advance or hurt peace talks with Israel. She also appeared hesitant to address Netanyahu’s warning to Abbas that the Palestinians can have “peace with Hamas or peace with Israel.”
“We maintain that both of these parties ought to stay committed to this process,” Nuland told reporters.
Last year, Abbas and Mashaal struck a reconciliation deal that later became bogged down in disagreement over who would head an interim government. Hamas strongly opposed Abbas’ initial choice of Salam Fayyad, the head of his Palestinian Authority.
Fayyad, an economist who is widely respected in the West, said Monday he welcomed the new deal even though it would cost him a job he has held since 2007.
The breakthrough came after two days of meetings between Abbas and Mashaal, hosted by Qatar’s emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. After the signing, Abbas said that “we promise our people to implement this agreement as soon as possible.”
Mashaal also said he was serious “about healing the wounds … to reunite our people on the foundation of a political partnership, in order to devote our effort to resisting the [Israeli] occupation.”
Qatar is willing to spend as much as $10 billion to help repair the damage of the rift, including settling mutual grievances by supporters of Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah movement who at the height of tensions fought bloody street battles, a Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the closed-door meetings with reporters. The figure could not be confirmed independently.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman began an official visit to the U.S. on Monday. Lieberman is scheduled to meet U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, one and a half years after his first official meeting with her. The two are set to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Lieberman is also set to meet other officials in Washington.
Lieberman is also scheduled to travel to New York, where he will meet the envoys for countries that are currently members of the U.N. Security Council as well as Jewish leaders. He also plans to visit the memorial for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=3011
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