RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conditions to resume stalled Mideast peace talks. The Palestinians also accused the White House of caving in to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby and backing off a demand to freeze Jewish settlement.
Netanyahu told the Knesset on Monday that his government was “willing to work hard for peace,” but added that “without recognition of Israel as the Jewish state, we simply cannot reach peace.”
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Arab News: “Netanyahu is looking for the stage of having no peace partner. He didn’t say anything new and he talks about peace in a language of public relations.”
President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction said in a statement that the Obama administration failed to set a clear agenda for a new round of peace talks. “All hopes placed in the new US administration and President Barack Obama have evaporated,” said an internal memo issued on Monday by Fatah’s Office of Mobilization and Organization headed by the party’s No. 2, Mohammed Ghneim.
Obama “couldn’t withstand the pressure of the Zionist lobby, which led to a retreat from his previous positions on halting settlement construction and defining an agenda for the negotiations and peace,” the document said.
Erekat said the PA could never accept resumption of negotiations with the continuation of settlement activity and the refugees’ right to return. “We won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” he said.
Fatah sources told Arab News that they believe the United States was allowing the hawkish Israeli leader to buy time. They said Netanyahu’s reiteration of peace conditions even after US Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s visit to the region “is proof of how futile the American pressure really is.”
Pressure has been mounting against Abbas from within his party to declare that there will be no return to the negotiations table under the present conditions.
On Sunday, former Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan said the party “feels very disappointed and worried by the US administration’s retreat.”
The Fatah memo comes at a time of turmoil within Fatah after Abbas quickly reversed a decision to suspend efforts to bring Israel before a UN war crimes tribunal in connection with the Gaza war.
Firing back at his critics Tuesday, Abbas accused Hamas of using the dispute over the UN report to try derail the unity talks but said that Fatah would “stay with the Egyptian reconciliation process until the last minute.”
“We know (Hamas) are looking for any excuse. This is not the first time they have disagreed about the dialogue, and now they are doing so with the excuse of the Goldstone report,” Abbas said in a speech in the West Bank town of Jenin. “They don’t want to go to Egypt, they don’t want to bring about national unity and they don’t want to turn back from their black coup,” he said.
Tuesday’s speech was Abbas’ harshest so far on his Hamas rivals. Fatah officials had earlier said that they would send a delegation to Egypt to sign onto the agreement and said that Cairo had given Hamas 48 hours to present its final response.
— With input from agencies
