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Hamas shrugs off US peace talks
21/11/2007 21:03 - (SA)
By Sakher Abu El Oun
Gaza City - From their isolated powerbase in Gaza, Hamas is already dismissing next week's US peace conference as a failure and says president Mahmud Abbas has no right to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians.
US President George W Bush called for the meeting in the city of Annapolis, near Washington DC, in July, weeks after the Islamist Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in a violent rout of forces loyal to Abbas and his secular Fatah.
The rout divided the Palestinians into two separate entities, with Abbas controlling the occupied West Bank and Hamas the Gaza Strip.
Hamas refuses to renounce violence
The decision to call for the conference was part of efforts by Israel and the West to isolate the Iranian-backed Hamas following the bloody takeover and boost the moderate Abbas, observers say.
"Isolating Hamas appears to be a key motivation behind the Annapolis process," wrote the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.
Hamas, which overwhelmingly won democratic parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, is considered a terror group by Israel, the European Union and the United States.
The basis for this condemnation is Hamas's refusal to renounce violence, recognise Israel and agree to abide by past peace deals.
From inside the impoverished and increasingly isolated territory, the Islamists are dismissing the conference which is aimed at jump-starting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after a seven-year freeze.
'Bush has aggressive plans'
"The delegation of Palestinian negotiators who will participate in the Annapolis conference are not taking the national consensus into account, are acting without a people's mandate and do not have any legitimacy," Hamas MP Mushir al-Masri said in a statement.
Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal, exiled in Damascus, said the Annapolis conference was called by Bush to mask aggressive plans in the region.
"President Bush launched the roadmap five years ago in preparation of the Iraq invasion," Meshaal said in an interview with the BBC, referring to an international peace blueprint launched in 2003 but largely dormant since.
"And now he wants to make peace in Palestine in preparation to a hit against Iran," Meshaal said.
"This is an American game. The Palestinians and the Arab peoples are aware of it and know that it is not serious."
- SAPA
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