Hamas delivered a blow to the Palestinian prime minister’s attempts to end attacks on Israel yesterday by breaking off all talks hours before a fresh round of negotiations aimed at establishing a ceasefire.
The Islamic fundamentalist group also issued a hard-hitting statement denouncing this week’s summit between President George Bush, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, as an American attempt to dictate and impose peace terms on the Palestinians. Hamas called on the Palestinian people and the Arab world to unite against the US-led ”road map” embraced by Abbas.
The move was unexpected, even though the Islamic fundamentalist group, with its principal power base in the Gaza Strip, had said it would continue the armed struggle after Israeli pledges to establish a Palestinian state at this week’s summit in Aqaba.
For weeks Abbas, who is better known as Abu Mazen, has said he expected to win agreement for a ceasefire from Hamas and other militant groups such as Islamic Jihad.
But Hamas objected to his recognition of Israel and de facto surrender of claim to land within Israel’s 1967 borders.
”The dialogue is over. Abu Mazen has gone too far with the Israelis,” said Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi, a Hamas leader in Gaza. ”He gave away to Sharon and Bush what the Palestinians said they would never do, so how can he claim to represent the Palestinian people?”
Hamas backed its stand with a series of rallies in Gaza. Protesters who marched with banners denouncing Abbas chanted: ”No to the summit. We will not accept surrender.”
However, some analysts questioned whether Hamas can afford to exclude itself from negotiations for long, in part because of growing support among the Palestinian public for the road map and partly because it would force Abbas, under Israeli pressure, to resort to the crackdown against Hamas he is apparently trying to avoid.
The Palestinian minister responsible for liaising with Hamas, Ziad Abu Amr, said he had not been told officially by the organisation that the talks were off. Mr Amr said the Israeli army’s killing of two Hamas activists yesterday may have complicated matters.
”Israel’s continuation of the policy of assassinations and incursion is an obstacle in the way of efforts of dialogue with the Palestinian parties and the possibility of reaching a cease-fire with them,” he told the Associated Press.
Hours earlier, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is responsible for many of the suicide bombings of the past two years, said it was prepared to call a ceasefire if Israel lifted its siege of Yasser Arafat — who is in effect a prisoner in his wrecked headquarters in Ramallah — ended ”targeted assassinations” and released more prisoners.
Hamas’s withdrawal from the ceasefire talks raises the prospect of a new wave of attacks, as well as questions about whether Israel will allow them to derail the fledgling peace process.
Until recently, Sharon was demanding ”complete quiet” — an end to all Palestinian attacks — before he would begin implementing Israel’s initial commitments under the road map to a Palestinian state. He has recently modified that position to demand ”100% effort” from Abbas against Hamas and other groups.
But the Israelis had been deeply unhappy with the strategy of trying to win a ceasefire, saying it would leave Hamas and other groups armed. Sharon pressed Abbas to round up the leaders of militant groups and to vigorously disarm their followers.
However, the Palestinian leadership says that, for now at least, it lacks the resources to pursue such a policy after Israel destroyed much of the police and security forces infrastructure during its reoccupation of West Bank cities last year. – Guardian Unlimited Â