RAMALLAH, 6 April 2008 — Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer yesterday cast doubt over the negotiations Israel is conducting with the Palestinian Authority and called for the release of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Al-Barghouti.
“The negotiations being conducted today are virtual. Only the release of Barghouti can change the situation. I respect (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas and (Prime Minister Salam) Fayyad; they are good people. But what happened to the 60,000 weapons that we handed over to them? Everything is under Hamas’ control now. I’m looking for someone with whom we can seal a deal,” Ben-Eliezer told a cultural forum in Israeli city of Haifa.
The Labor Party minister warned that Hamas may seize control of the West Bank in the near future, adding that if a peace agreement is not reached, “a third nationalistic Arab movement will be established that will lead to a binational state in Israel.
“At this rate, Hamas will soon take over the West Bank as well,” he said, “I believe the only one who can stop this from happening is Barghouti.”
The minister continued to say that “we have entered our 41st year in the (Palestinian territories, and what do we have to show for it? Two nationalistic Palestinian movements. At this rate a third movement will be established by Israel’s Arabs.”
Abbas, meanwhile, said that he will assess the state of peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at their planned meeting in Jerusalem tomorrow, a senior Abbas aide said.
The meeting will be the first between the two leaders since Abbas briefly broke off talks last month following Israel’s killing of over 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians, in an offensive in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorie have led regular negotiating sessions but these have shown little sign of progress since their launch at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November.
The sides are trying to reach a framework agreement by the end of 2008 that would outline the shape of a future Palestinian state.
Olmert has stated that implementation of any agreement would only take place once Abbas has reined in West Bank and Gaza Strip militants, as called for under a long-stalled “road map” peace plan.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas would present his position that Israel has not met any of its initial commitments under the road map plan. Israel has yet to halt all settlement activity and uproot Jewish outposts in the West Bank built without Israeli government authorization, as stated in the road map. Olmert and Abbas last met on Feb. 19.
Meanwhile, 12 Palestinians escaped from a Palestinian-run prison in the northern West Bank city of Nablus overnight, Palestinian security officials said yesterday. The detainees, members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed group loosely tied to Abbas’ Fatah party, were wanted by the Israeli Army, officials said.
They had been detained in the Jneid prison under a July 2007 agreement with Israel that allows militants to surrender their weapons and serve a three-month period of detention in exchange for amnesty.
—With input from agencies
