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Rice. Not Pleased. (Flash90)
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| By Israel Insider staff March 5, 2008 |
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| (Flash90) |
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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the Palestinians and Israel will return to the negotiating table, even though West Bank constable Mahmoud Abbas had declared that talks were off to protest the IDF anti-rocket operations in the Gaza Strip.
PA officials in Ramallah told the Jerusalem Post Tuesday that although Abbas was ready to resume peace talks, he was seeking assurances that Israel would refrain from further military operations in the Gaza Strip. They said Abbas was also demanding that a "comprehensive and mutual" cease-fire between the Palestinians and Israel be reached before the resumption of the negotiations. But Abbas backed down, issuing a statement from his headquarters in Ramallah. "The peace process is a strategic choice and we have the intention of resuming the peace process," he said in a statement.
Israeli PM Ehud Olmert appeared to oblige him by saying that Israel would not strike Gaza unless rocket attacks continued. "If there won't be any Qassam rockets attacks on Israel, Israel won't have any cause to take military action in Gaza. Israelis don't wake up every morning thinking of how to strike Gaza next," he said. "If we are not attacked, we won't attack either."
Five Katyusha rockets fired from Gaza at Ashkelon exploded on empty ground south of the city; four Qassam missiles were aimed at as Sderot and the Eshkol farming region, raising the total from Wednesday morning to eight.
At a news conference in Jerusalem Wednesday following a meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Rice said that the two sides had agreed to resume peace talks. "I've been informed by the parties that they intend to resume the negotiations and are in contact with one another as to how to bring this about," said Rice.
Rice pointedly did not call for a truce but she urged Hamas to halt its rocket fire and urged Israel to do its best to protect Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire. "There are enemies of peace that will always try to hold hostage the Palestinian cause and the future of the Palestinian people for their own state," she said. "And Hamas, which in effect holds the people of Gaza hostage in their hands is now trying to make the path to a Palestinian state hostage to them. We cannot permit that to happen."
Livni said the two sides had agreed at the November peace conference that Israel would conduct negotiations with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, while "meeting the challenge" in the Gaza Strip. Hamas cannot be allowed to dictate the pace of talks, she said, gently criticizing the Palestinians for halting the talks. She said that Israel had kept talking even after a Palestinian suicide bombing in Dimona last month and after an Israeli was killed in a Hamas rocket attack in Sderot last week. "Peace negotiations are not a gift that somebody gives the other. It's a mutual interest, a mutual aspiration and a mutual dream of our two peoples," she said.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum criticized Abbas's reversal.
"Abu Mazen is a weak man, who couldn't protect the Palestinian people," he said, using Abbas's nickname. "America and Israel don't take him into account, but only use him as a tool to pass their plans on the Palestinians."
And as if to prove Barhoum's price, a report issued Wednesday night from the official Palestine Liberation Organization news agency threw into question whether Abbas did in fact agree to renew talks:
"President Mahmoud Abbas refused U.S secretary of state Condoleezza Rice claim she asked Tuesday in their meeting Tuesday in the Presidential headquarter in Ramallah city about hastily going back to negotiations with Israel so as not to waste the time left for President George Bush's presidency."
"Head of the Palestinian negotiators Ahmed Qurea was quoted as saying that President told Rice that the circumstances, according to which the negotiations were freezed (sic), are still there, especially in light of the Israeli ongoing threats."
"In this regard, a Palestinian official said that President told Rice that he suggested that Egypt acts as a mediator so as to achieve a mutual truce with Israel by which Egypt is the body who will be in contact with the Palestinian bodies."
"According to this suggestion, backed by Rice, Israel has to stop the assault against Gaza Strip, uplift the siege and hand over the crossings to the Palestinian National Authority while firing rockets against Israel is to halt as well."
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