GAZA CITY/CAIRO, 2 December 2003 — Talks in Cairo, designed to secure a truce by armed Palestinian groups in their campaign of attacks against Israel, which were due to take place today, have been postponed for two days, officials said. “We have agreed to postpone the dialogue until Thursday,” top Islamic Jihad official Muhammad Al-Hindi told AFP.
Hindi, whose organization was one of 12 factions expected in the Egyptian capital, did not give any reason for the postponement. But informed sources said that the Palestinians did not want their meeting to overshadow the aftermath of yesterday’s launch of the Geneva Initiative, an unofficial Middle East peace plan.
One of the leaders of the delegation for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah movement, also said that the talks had been put off until Thursday. “From what I know, the dialogue has been postponed until Thursday to allow all the delegates to travel to Cairo,” Hussein Al-Sheikh told AFP.
The main Palestinian groups, including the radical Jihad and its larger rival Hamas, have rejected the Geneva plan for its de facto renunciation of the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees.
A senior Hamas official, Abdelaziz Al-Rantissi, said in Gaza that no cease-fire was possible without an Israeli troop withdrawal from all lands occupied in 1967, reflecting a toughened Hamas position ahead of the truce talks.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, which are not members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, call for Israel’s destruction and have led a bombing campaign against Israelis. Khaled Al-Batsh, a top official of the Islamic Jihad, said the Geneva Accord, which is an unofficial plan to resolve the conflict, “has created sort of a crisis between the factions and could influence the talks in Cairo negatively”.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath hoped yesterday that Cairo talks would produce an inter-Palestinian commitment to a truce, enabling the Palestinian Authority to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel.
“All the Palestinian factions and the Palestinian Authority will be in Cairo, under Egypt’s sponsorship,” for the talks Shaath told a press conference at the United Nations House in Beirut. The talks were meant “to reach an agreement which we hope, and Egypt hopes, would be reached in a very short period of time.”
“The agreement will help the Palestinian Authority to be armed with a Palestinian commitment ... in order to negotiate with Israel and say: ‘if you are ready for a truce, we are ready to commit to a truce’.”
He denounced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and praised recent moves by Israel’s opposition Labour Party, including the Geneva Initiative.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa played down the importance of the new unofficial initiative for Arab-Israeli peace being launched in Geneva. “This document is the (result) of a popular and unofficial effort,” Moussa said, adding that the so-called Geneva Initiative “is an effort that is not negative.”
Meanwhile, two Hamas activists were sentenced to 36 life sentences each on Sunday for their involvement in anti-Israeli attacks which left a total of 36 people dead plus three bombers, military sources in Tel Aviv said. Muhammad Arman and Walid Anjas from the northern West Bank were found guilty of involvement in a suicide attack in a Jerusalem cafe on March 9 which had killed 11 people.
