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Hamas: ME Confab Doomed
GAZA CITY, Nov 21--Hamas is dismissing next week's Middle East conference as a failure and says Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud 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 Hamas movement seized power in the Gaza Strip.
"Isolating Hamas appears to be a key motivation behind the Annapolis process," wrote the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.
Hamas overwhelmingly won democratic parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006.
"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.
And Abbas has no right to negotiate with or make concessions to the Israelis without Hamas, he said.
"Does Abu Mazen have the right to give concessions?" asks another Hamas MP, Salah al-Bardawil.
"No, as those demanded by Israel are immense, like renouncing the return of refugees or settlements.''
"To go to this conference while the Palestinians are divided and without a political national consensus will result in failure of the Palestinian team and a regression of our cause" to Israel's benefit, Bardawil warned.
Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal 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.
Meshaal warned that holding a conference devoid of meaning "will explode the region by provoking popular anger.''
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"Isolating Hamas appears to be a key motivation behind the Annapolis process," wrote the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.
Hamas overwhelmingly won democratic parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006.
"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.
And Abbas has no right to negotiate with or make concessions to the Israelis without Hamas, he said.
"Does Abu Mazen have the right to give concessions?" asks another Hamas MP, Salah al-Bardawil.
"No, as those demanded by Israel are immense, like renouncing the return of refugees or settlements.''
"To go to this conference while the Palestinians are divided and without a political national consensus will result in failure of the Palestinian team and a regression of our cause" to Israel's benefit, Bardawil warned.
Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal 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.
Meshaal warned that holding a conference devoid of meaning "will explode the region by provoking popular anger.''
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CAIRO, Nov 21 (NNN-KUNA) -- Latest developments in the region dominated talks between President Hosni Mubarak and the Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair held in Sharm Al-Sheikh.
The Mubarak-Blair talks Wednesday addressed the peace process in light of the international envoy's last visit to Israel and the forthcoming Annapolis peace conference.
Egypt's contacts with the Arab and international parties to secure success for the event to be held on Tuesday, featured high on the Sharm Al-Sheikh agenda, according to reports by the Egyptian TV.
It added that the meeting addressed the Palestinian demand for a tripartite committee comprising Palestinian, Israeli and Quartet representatives to supervise the implementation of the first phase of the road map.
Mubarak's talks with Blair came one day after the Egyptian leader had talks in the Egyptian Red Sea resort with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and also after a phone call with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Annapolis.
-- NNN-KUNA
GAZA, Nov 21 (NNN-KUNA) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has agreed to allow Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank receive 50 armoured vehicles, reversing two years of opposition, Israeli officials said.
Olmert is presenting the agreement as a gesture to moderate Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in advance of next week's Mideast peace conference in the US, the Israeli daily "Haaretz" quoted the officials as saying Wednesday.
The Israel Defence Forces and the internal Shin Bet security service have opposed supplying Abbas' forces with armoured vehicles, in part because of concern that they might fall into the hands of the militant Islamic Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, or other violent groups, according to the Israeli daily.
When Hamas overran Gaza in June, expelling Fatah forces loyal to Abbas, the Islamists captured large quantities of weapons supplied to Fatah by the United States and others, with Israeli approval.
Israel still has large numbers of troops in the West Bank but withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
-- NNN-KUNA
He also complained that Ban's recent report to the Security Council on "Protection of civilians in armed conflicts" also contained "false information" regarding the "increasing resort to suicide attacks" in Israel.
In identical letters dated Monday to Ban and Security Council President, Indonesia, Mansour complained that Ban's reports have a "tendency to portray the prevailing situation as more of a conflict between two equal sides -- the Israeli and Palestinian -- rather than actually one of an occupation."
"The perpetuation of reporting, including certain language usage, that overlooks the existence of this occupation is unacceptable. Of course, this in no way implies that the occupied people are absolved from respecting international law, but rather the point is to stress that any examination of the situation and developments in this regard must be considered within the overall context of the occupation, which remains the root cause of this conflict," Mansour said in his letters.
He cited as an example the language Ban used in his latest report to the council on the "Protection of civilians in armed conflict" which is being discussed in the council Tuesday.
He said his delegation is "even more troubled by statements that are totally false" contained in that report and in which Ban stated that a "particularly worrying trend is the increasing resort to suicide attacks in places including Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Somalia."
"The figures of the recent period in fact show a marked decrease in suicide attacks against Israeli civilians," Mansour argued, quoting the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem which reported that Israeli civilian deaths resulting from such attacks steadily decreased from 24 in 2005, to 10 in 2006 and to five in 2007.
"In light of the actual facts and the reality of the situation on the ground, we believe it is imperative that this false statement in the report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council be corrected and are respectfully requesting such a correction," he said, adding that such a correction be made prior to Tuesday's meeting.
The correction, however, came during the council meeting Tuesday on the "Protection of civilians in armed conflict" when John Holmes, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, "corrected any misleading impression that could be given by a sentence in the report."
He told the council that the point that the report "wishes to make is that such (suicide) attacks are being carried out in an increasing number of countries (including Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Somalia) and that it was not the UN's intention to assert that there has been an increase in the actual number of suicide attacks in the countries mentioned."
-- NNN-KUNA
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GAZA, (PIC)-- Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, the spokesman of Hamas Movement in Gaza Strip, has warned Wednesday that the "bountiful" Israeli military support to the PA security apparatuses loyal to PA chief Mahmoud Abbas confirms beyond reasonable doubt that those apparatuses became agents of the Israeli occupation in quelling the honorable Palestinian resistance.
"The Israeli step of supplying 25 armored military vehicles and big amounts of weapons and ammunitions stands as strong and clear evidence on the volume of the conspiracy against the Palestinian resistance, and unveils the degree of the ethical and security decline on the part of the PA leadership in Ramallah city after turning the PA security apparatuses into security agents of the [Israeli] occupation", affirmed Abu Zuhri in a press statement in Gaza, and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC.
He also charged that the step reflects the Israeli occupation government's role in dividing the Palestinians by supporting one Palestinian party against the others, adding that it became clear that the legitimate weapons which the PA leadership was talking about was the occupation's weapons which is used against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance.
Furthermore, Abu Zuhri confirmed that his Movement had "repeatedly warned of the adverse repercussion of the foreign intervention in the Palestinian internal affairs and of the Israeli policy of supporting a party against other parties in the past, which (after being ignored) led to the unfortunate incidents in the Gaza Strip".
In this regard, the Movement warned of foreign plans to use the PA security apparatuses in fighting Hamas Movement and other Palestinian resistance factions in the West Bank.
"Hamas is holding the PA leadership in Ramallah city fully responsible for the (political) developments that might result out of the PA-Israeli security coordination [against the resistance fighters", the Hamas official stressed.
But Abu Zuhri expressed his confidence that all the schemes against the Palestinian resistance will not succeed in "confiscating" the resistance option because the Hamas Movement, along with all honorable Palestinian people, will defend the resistance project to the end and with all available means.
Hebrew media sources had earlier disclosed that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the military supplies to Abbas that came from Russia and Jordan to reach Abbas's security forces in the West Bank.
The Israeli occupation government considered the approval as an Israeli "gesture of good will" to Abbas prior to the US-planned Annapolis conference which is scheduled at the end of this month.
The Hebrew Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper asserted that although a number of the IOF military top brass objected the weapon's supplies to Abbas's forces on fears they might fall in the hands of the Palestinian resistance fighters, yet, the paper added, Olmert approved the entry of those weapons in order to help the PA security forces in their drive against the Palestinian resistance fighters in the West Bank.
The paper also quoted an official source in Olmert's office as affirming that the main objective of allowing those weapons to reach Abbas's forces was to hit the Palestinian resistance in all its forms because they (Abbas's forces) couldn't crack down on the Palestinian resistance without those weapons, and that the Israelis were confident that Abbas and his team in Ramallah city will carry out the mission properly and as planned.
Furthermore, the paper quoted the Israeli source as affirming that the ball was in the court of Abbas's forces and that it is their turn to prove seriousness in fighting and finishing off the Palestinian resistance factions with these weapons.
Hundreds of Hamas's fighters, political leaders, and sympathizers were arrested at the hand of the PA security apparatuses over the past five months in full coordination with the Israeli security departments.
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