Palestinians reject US call for resuming peace talks
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Hundreds of Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli soldiers in Ramallah on Friday, January 8, 2010, following the deaths of three Palestinians, including a 14-year-old-boy in earlier Israeli air strikes overnight in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of Palestinians are injured during the clash. [Photo: Sina.com.cn] |
Last week, Abbas visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey to express the Palestinian stance concerning the efforts to resume the peace talks.
"There are actually Arab efforts exerted by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar to convince the U.S. Administration that it is time now that the United States present a comprehensive peace plan based on the establishment of a Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967," said Erekat.
The Palestinians insist the borders of their future statehood encompass all of the land Israel occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem as their capital, while Israel deems Jerusalem as its indivisible capital.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has also called on the international community to urge Israel to stop settlement in the Palestinian territories and end the blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip for three years "before resuming any peace negotiations."
Meanwhile, the Islamic Hamas movement, which has been ruling the Gaza Strip since June 2007, snubbed U.S. and Arab efforts to resume peace talks between the PNA and Israel.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters that the bids to revive the peace process "aim at saving the Arab regimes from their weakness and rescuing the U.S. administration's reputation which is biased towards the Israeli occupation."
"For Hamas, the only beneficiary of the resumption of the negotiations is Israel which will use it as a cover to continue building settlements and making Jerusalem Jewish," Abu Zuhri added.
Hamas basically rejects the Middle East peace process and also refuses to recognize Israel.
Also on Saturday, a coalition of eight Palestinian factions based in Damascus, which include Hamas, Islamic Jihad and radical left-wing groups, said that they reject recent American and Arab political efforts to resume the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
"The ongoing moves to re-track negotiations with Israel are part of a plan to subjugate the Palestinian people to Israeli conditions," said the eight groups in a statement.
"We call on all the Palestinians political factions and powers to be united to confront these plans that would harm the just Palestinian cause," the statement said.
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