- Title: MIDDLE EAST: Israelis and Palestinians differ on Hamas-Fatah unity government
- Date: 29th April 2011
- Summary: JERUSALEM (APRIL 28, 2011) (REUTERS) ISRAELI PRESIDENT SHIMON PERES STANDING (SOUNDBITE) (English) ISRAELI PRESIDENT SHIMON PERES SAYING: "Nobody would like to see the Palestinian people become united but united for peace." MORE OF PERES (SOUNDBITE) (English) ISRAELI PRESIDENT SHIMON PERES SAYING: "If Hamas will be elected with a charter to destroy Israel, with the p
- Embargoed: 14th May 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Jerusalem, Israel, West bank
- City:
- Country: Israel
- Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA3K93FAMXE02ITP79RPQD0QTS0
- Story Text: Israel said on Thursday (April 28) Palestinian unity deal would sabotage prospects for peace and stemmed from panic by Hamas and Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas over popular uprisings in Syria and Egypt.
The surprise reconciliation between the Islamist group that runs Gaza and Abbas's Fatah movement that exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank presented a new challenge for Israel as it mounts a diplomatic drive against a unilateral Palestinian campaign to win U.N. recognition of statehood in September.
"Nobody would like to see the Palestinian people become united, but united for peace," Israeli President Shimon Peres said.
Peres, a respected elder statesman, said in a statement he feared Hamas would ultimately take over the West Bank after a Palestinian election envisaged by the unity deal and that the influence of Hamas ally Iran would be strengthened as a result.
"If Hamas will be elected with a charter to destroy Israel, with the permission to continue to be a terrorist organization, but... what is the option for Israel? What can we do but to defend our lives?" Peres added.
Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak, who heads a small centre-left faction in Israel's rightist coalition, questioned whether the Palestinian unity deal, which charts the formation of an interim administration and elections later this year, would be implemented.
"The option or possibility of joint government for the Palestinian shared by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, by Fatah and Hamas, could make sense if, and only if, they will go through major transformation. Namely, accepting the demands of the Quartet -- central to that is the acceptance of all previous agreements with Israel and readiness to negotiate while recognising Israel, and the need to dismantle the terror infrastructure, the rocket infrastructure in the Gaza Strip," Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Reuters Television.
Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni said that Israel opposes Palestinian unity because Hamas is not willing to accept Israel's right to exist.
"The idea of delegitimizing Hamas is not because we want to punish them for acting in terms of terror against Israel, but because they represent extreme religious ideology, and for more than four years now, they were not willing to accept the right of israel to exist or to renounce violence or terrorism or even to accept even former agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, we are talking about the Oslo agreements," she told reporters in a news conference.
Next month, Netanyahu is due to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, a speech that had been widely expected to include new, interim steps towards a peace agreement.
"The Palestinians need to make their own decisions as well. And the test for the future Palestinian government is the requirements of the international community," Livni added.
In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians said the unity accord was born of a deep-seated popular desire to overcome the Hamas-Fatah divide and reflected frustration over the slow move towards statehood.
Abbas has said he will not return to U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations until settlement-building is halted in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians want as part of a future state.
Israel has called that an unacceptable pre-condition, and has been urging Western governments to oppose Palestinian plans to ask the U.N. General Assembly in September to recognise a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza.
Peace talks between Israel and Abbas's administration resumed in September in Washington but quickly broke down after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a partial building freeze in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the reconciliation pact was unveiled on Wednesday, Abbas signaled negotiations with Israel would still be possible during the term of a new interim government formed under the agreement.
He said the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which he heads and to which Hamas does not belong, would still be responsible for "handling politics, negotiations".
"Politics is for the PLO, for the chairman, for the executive committee of the PLO, as the chairman, myself of the PLO. So we will continue handling the politics and the negotiations, talks, contacts with the countries everywhere - it is our duty to do it," Abbas said to a group of Israelis visiting him in the Palestinian Presidential compound.
Hamas won the last Palestinian legislative election held in 2006 and a unity government it formed with Fatah was short-lived, collapsing into a brief civil war in which the Islamists seized Gaza in 2007.
Hamas's founding charter calls for Israel's destruction but it has raised the possibility of a long-term ceasefire if a Palestinian state is created in the West Bank and Gaza. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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