Haniyeh: We won’t recognize Israel

While Abbas is in US laboring to promote coalition with Hamas to international leaders as a government that will cooperate with international demands, Palestinian prime minister throws a curve ball and proclaims: We do not accept Quartet’s conditions

Just hours before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was to meet with US President George W. Bush, PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh sabotaged Abbas’ hopes to convince Americans of the advantages of a unity government with Hamas.

In a speech delivered to Palestinian demonstrators Wednesday, Haniyeh declared that he had no intention of recognizing Israel – the chief precondition posed by the Quartet to cooperating with the Palestinian government.

During the meeting with Bush, Abbas was expected to “market” the new Palestinian unity government as a leadership that would recognize prior international decisions and would conform to Arab peace initiatives that recognize Israel.

But while Abbas lined up meetings abroad, back in Gaza Haniyeh unequivocally proclaimed, “They demand we condemn the resistance and recognize the legitimacy of the occupation. We are duty-bound to the Prisoners’ Document, which doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the occupation.

“We do not accept the Quartet’s conditions, but we also do not accept that the present situation continues,” the Palestinian prime minister told demonstrators demanding months of unpaid wages.

Haniyeh’s comments only reinforced recent statements by senior Hamas elements that the party does not plan to recognize Israel. This stance poses a severe challenge to Abbas’ attempts to promote the unity government which he labored over during weeks of meetings prior to leaving for the UN summit in New York.

Ali Waked
Published: 09.20.06, 16:49

They seek the death of 6,000,000 Jews and the destruction of the State of Israel.