The Hamas-led Palestinian government accused Israeli leader Ehud Olmert on Wednesday of having no interest in negotiating a peace settlement, despite his pledge to meet Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.
In a summit on Tuesday with United States President George Bush, Olmert said that he would seek to set the final borders of Israel on a unilateral basis only after exhausting efforts to reach a negotiated settlement through the moderate Abbas.
However, he then said the entry into government of Hamas in March ”severely undermines the possibility of promoting a genuine peace process”.
Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas government’s chief spokesperson, said Olmert was ”lying” and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the international community by claiming to want to negotiate a two-state solution.
”The political programme of Israel is very clear — they want to create a pure Jewish state. He [Olmert] is not interested in establishing a Palestinian state,” Hamad told Agence France-Presse.
Olmert refuses to have any dealings with Hamas as long as it refuses to renounce violence or recognise Israel’s right to exist. He has also argued that talks with Abbas will be ultimately futile unless he can make Hamas change its platform.
Hamad recalled how Olmert’s now coma-stricken predecessor Ariel Sharon also dismissed the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as an obstacle to peace.
”He says there is no partner, but before they said Arafat was not a partner and now they say Hamas is not a partner,” said Hamad.
”He does not trust Abu Mazen [Abbas], he just wants to continue his idea of a unilateral solution … He doesn’t want to sit at the negotiating table.” — AFP
