Palestinians not interested in negotiations with Israel because of US deal
Image by nagillum via FlickrThe Palestinians on Sunday slammed what they described as the American incentives to the Israeli government to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank for three months for resuming the direct peace talks.The Hamas complaint makes no sense since they would not negotiate with Israel under any circumstances. The complaint of the other faction is not really explained.
Leaders in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party said that "If it is true that the United States had presented incentives offered to Israel for freezing settlement, it will be totally rejected by the Palestinians and would never help the stalled peace talks to resume."
Amin Maqbool, a Fatah central committee member, told Xinhua that "such American incentives would never help to revive the peace process in the Middle East," adding "Israel is an aggressive country, therefore it will misuse the American incentives to keep its aggression and not to achieve peace."
"If the earlier media reports are true, then such incentives would be dangerous for the international peace process and on the general situation in the Middle East," said Maqbool, adding that " the Palestinians totally reject the idea and warns of implementing it."
Israeli Radio had earlier reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented the proposed U.S. package to his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, adding that the U.S. proposal aims at resuming the direct talks by freezing the settlement construction and offering other security goodwill gestures to the Palestinians.
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The proposed U.S. package, according to the Radio, said that after Israel temporarily freezes settlement construction for three additional months, the U.S. will not ask Israel again to freeze settlement, and that the U.S. would vote veto against any resolution that harms Israel.
Meanwhile, officials in the deposed government of Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, slammed what had been reported by the Israeli media, adding that "this shows the ongoing biased American stance towards the Zionist occupation."
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It does seem clear they none of the Palestinians are interested in seizing the opportunity for negotiations that resulted from the extension of the settlement freeze.
It leads me to conclude that the settlement issue was just a pretext for avoiding an agreement. If the Palestinians were really concerned about the settlements they could include the restrictions in a final agreement with Israel.
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