ISRAEL has called on Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas to rip up the unity deal struck between the PLO and Hamas.
Israel earlier suspended peace talks with the Palestinians in response to the two factions agreeing to form a unity government. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reacted angrily to Wednesday’s agreement, accusing Abbas of choosing ‘Hamas, not peace’.
Public radio said ministers were likely to announce fresh retaliatory measures on top of a raft of financial sanctions unveiled this month when the Palestinians applied to join 15 international treaties. ‘By tying itself to Hamas, the Palestinian leadership is turning its back on peace,’ a Netanyahu aide said.
PLO official Saeb Erekat slammed Israel’s response to the unity deal, saying that ‘Mr Netanyahu and his government were using Palestinian division as an excuse not to make peace. During the past nine months of negotiations, Mr Netanyahu’s government has increased settlement construction, home demolitions, killings, detentions and military raids,’ he said in a statement.
The Israeli government has refused to present a map showing the PLO where the borders of the Israeli state are and has refused to recognise Palestine’s right to exist on the 1967 border, he added.
‘And the moment we sign a national reconciliation agreement upon a single political platform that recognises all previously signed agreements between Palestine and Israel, Mr Netanyahu and his government blame us for the failure of talks,’ he said.
Israel already announced on April 10 that it was freezing the transfer of some $111 million in taxes it collects on behalf of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which account for some two-thirds of its revenues.
The deal between the Palestinian leadership and Hamas came as US-brokered peace talks which opened last July teetered on the brink of collapse just days before their scheduled April 29 conclusion. US envoy Martin Indyk has held repeated meetings with the two sides in a last-ditch bid to salvage the negotiations.
Erekat denied any three-way meeting was planned for Wednesday but acknowledged he was meeting Indyk on Thursday without the Israelis. Abbas says he will not extend the negotiations unless Israel agrees to a freeze on all settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, including annexed East Jerusalem, and frees a group of Palestinian prisoners who had been earmarked for release this month.
He has also demanded the two sides launch straight into negotiations on the future borders of the Palestinians’ promised state. Israel has dismissed all three conditions.
Washington warned on Wednesday that the deal between the Palestinian leadership and Hamas threatened to scupper any chance of rescuing the talks. ‘It’s hard to see how Israel can be expected to negotiate with a government that does not believe in its right to exist,’ State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
The division between Fatah and Hamas began in 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections. In the following year, clashes erupted between Fatah and Hamas, leaving Hamas in control of the Strip and Fatah in control of parts of the occupied West Bank.
The groups have made failed attempts at national reconciliation for years, most recently in 2012, when they signed two agreements – one in Cairo and a subsequent one in Doha – which have as of yet been entirely unimplemented.
PLO and Hamas representatives announced an historic unity deal on Wednesday to bring to an end more than seven years of political division between the main Palestinian political parties. Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah announced the end of years of Palestinian political division in a press conference in Gaza City, saying that the Hamas and PLO delegations had worked as ‘one team’ throughout the reconciliation dialogue and had stressed the necessity of achieving results in this round of dialogue.
The joint PLO-Hamas statement given at the conference also authorised the Palestinian Authority president to set a date for new elections, and emphasised the commitment of both sides to the reconciliation principles that had been agreed upon in the Cairo Agreement and the Doha Declaration.
They also emphasised the need to reactivate the Palestinian Legislative Council. Fatah leader Azzam al-Ahmad said that neither side will accept the resumption of negotiations with Israel without clear guidelines, and that negotiations had stalled as a result of ‘Israel intransigence’ and ‘American bias’.
Earlier, Palestinian officials announced that they had agreed to form a unity government within five weeks that will be headed by either President Abbas or former Deputy Prime Minister of the 2006 unity government Nasser al-Din al-Shaer, who is a member of Hamas.
The parties also agreed that both Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the occupied West Bank would release prisoners detained for their political affiliation. Meanwhile, the second-ranking US diplomat warned on Thursday during a visit to Libya that the threat of extremism is an ‘enormous challenge’ for the North African country and the international community.
William Burns is the most senior American official to travel to Libya since an assault on the US consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi killed four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens, in 2012.
‘Rising violent extremism …and terrorism is an enormous challenge first for Libya but also for Libya’s international partners as well,’ the deputy secretary of state told a news conference. Burns said the US stood ready to help improve the security situation in Libya, which has been plagued by violence since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled Colonel Gadaffi.
‘We discussed ongoing international support for Libya’s efforts to reform the security sector, improve border security, control the proliferation of conventional weapons, and enhance the rule of law,’ he said.
‘And we talked at length about the hugely important task of training Libya’s General Purpose Forces and the steps that need to be taken to accelerate progress’
Libya is awash with NATO-supplied weapons from the 2011 uprising, and authorities have struggled to establish security by integrating anti-Gadaffi militias into the regular army or police force. Now-ousted Prime Minister Ali Zeidan requested US support last year to train new General Purpose Forces without links to the militias to help the central government to assert its authority.
During his 24-hour visit, Burns met with interim Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani and leaders of Libya’s most powerful political body, the General National Congress. It comes with the Libyan government in turmoil after Thani quit last week just days after his appointment, saying he and his family had been the victims of a ‘traitorous’ attack.
