RAMALLAH/GAZA CITY, 27 November 2007 — Vowing yesterday to go on fighting the “Zionist enemy,” Hamas called Mahmoud Abbas the worst leader in Palestinian history and said he had no right to make concessions to Israel at the Annapolis peace conference.
Speaking at an “anti-Annapolis” conference in Gaza, leaders of the Islamist group which seized the enclave from Abbas’ forces in June said the president did not represent the Palestinian people and vowed never to recognize Israel.
“Let the whole world hear us — we will not cede an inch of Palestine and we will never recognize Israel,” Hamas’ Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh told the meeting of about 1,000 people, including representatives from some other Palestinian factions.
Hamas’ seizure of control of Gaza, prompted Abbas, whose rival Fatah faction holds sway in the West Bank, to sack Haniyeh as prime minister and open negotiations, with US sponsorship, that could lead to a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Hamas, shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence, was not invited to today’s conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
Israel, which views Gaza as an “enemy entity” and launches regular raids into the territory to curb rocket attacks, killed a Hamas militant and wounded four in a missile strike yesterday. Hamas said it would hold a second “alternative” conference in Damascus today.
Its exiled leader Khaled Meshaal is based in the Syrian capital but Syria blocked previous Hamas efforts to hold a gathering there and is sending its own representative to the US-hosted talks with Israel in Maryland.
Earlier yesterday, Hamas lawmakers signed a document vowing not to give up their claim to land from which Palestinians fled, or were forced to flee, when Israel was established in 1948.
Ahmed Bahar, the Hamas deputy speaker of Palestinian Legislative Council, said in a press conference that “Any settlement that does not include the return of the refugees, (Israel’s) ceding of the land and the holy sites, and the release of the prisoners is ridiculous.”
In Ramallah, senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub said that the conference is “pointless if the American administration does not insist on a firm timetable and mechanism for the creation of a Palestinian state.”
Rajoub, a member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council and one of its strong men in the West Bank, added that the Israeli negotiators would try to avoid “their commitments toward the international and regional dimensions of the peace process relying on the US adopting a double-standard policy in addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
