US plea on Palestine deal
‘Unity government must recognise Israel and disarm Hamas’
ATOP aide to US President Donald Trump said yesterday that an emerging Palestinian unity government must recognise Israel and disarm Hamas, in Washington’s first detailed response to a landmark reconciliation deal signed last week.
A Hamas official immediately rejected the comments as “blatant interference” in Palestinian affairs, but did not say directly whether the Islamist group planned to comply with any of the demands.
Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, who has repeatedly visited the region to seek ways to restart peace talks, laid out a series of conditions.
“Any Palestinian government must unambiguously and explicitly commit to nonviolence, recognise the state of Israel, accept previous agreements and obligations between the parties – including to disarm terrorists – and commit to peaceful neg Greenblatt said.
The US conditions were roughly in line with principles previously set out by the Quartet on the Middle East – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
“If Hamas is to play any role in a Palestinian government, it must accept these basic requirements,” Greenblatt said.
The statement was also similar to the Israeli government’s response this week in which it vowed not to negotiate with a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas unless the Islamist group agrees to a list of demands.
The demands included recognising Israel and renouncing violence, but also returning the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza, among other conditions.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim condemned Greenblatt’s statement and accused the US of adopting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s positions.
“This is blatant interference in Palestinian affairs because it is the right of our people to choose its government according to their supreme strategic interests,” Naim said.
“This statement comes under pressure from the extreme right-wing Netanyahu government and is in line with the Netanyahu statement from two days ago.”
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement signed a reconciliation deal with Hamas in Cairo a week ago aimed at ending a bitter 10-year split.
The Abbas-led Palestine Liberation Organisation has recognised Israel, but Hamas has not and is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by the US and the European Union. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008, and the Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade for more than a decade.
Egypt has also kept its border with Gaza largely closed in recent years.
Hamas has run the Gaza Strip since seizing it in a near civil war in 2007 with Fatah, based in the occupied West Bank, following a dispute over elections won by the Islamist movement.
The Palestinian Authority, currently dominated by Fatah, is due to resume control of the Gaza Strip by December 1 under the deal.
Talks are also expected on forming a unity government, with another meeting between the various Palestinian political factions scheduled for November 21.
A major sticking point is expected to be Hamas’s refusal to disarm its 25 000-strong armed wing.
Diplomats say it would be possible to form a unity government that they could deal with that does not officially include Hamas.
UN assistant secretary-general Miroslav Jenca welcomed the reconciliation deal and spoke of the urgency of addressing the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. — AFP