PLO chief: Abbas has lost faith in the PA

Published yesterday (updated) 09/11/2009 22:34

Bethlehem - Ma'an -

President Mahmoud Abbas has come to the conclusion that the Palestinian Authority is no longer a relevant institution, chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat told the New York Times on Monday.

"He really doesn't think there is a need to be president or to have [the Palestinian] Authority," the PLO chief was quoted as saying.

Framing the crisis as larger than mere politics, Erekat warned of far-reaching implications. "This is not about who is going to replace him. This is about our leaving our posts. You think anybody will stay after he leaves?"

According to Erekat, the president lost faith in the 14-year-old body, itself meant to be temporary, when it became clear establishing an independent state was no longer likely to happen. "I think he is realizing that he came all this way with the peace process in order to create a Palestinian state but he sees no state coming." Without that prospect, Abbas no longer feels relevant, Erekat said.

Top officials have agreed that Abbas was not bluffing when he announced his intentions to step down. The president feels he is at an impasse with Israel's right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has refused to agree to a state on the internationally recognized borders, which include East Jerusalem.

But Erekat's account stood in contrast to statements Abbas made during a tour of the West Bank a day earlier. He said on Sunday that while "there is no possibility of establishing a Palestinian state while settlements continue," the PA had not abandoned the national objective of establishing a state on the 1967 borders.

Azzam Al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, said on Monday that "the real reason" Abbas has refused to participate in presidential elections he called for 24 January 2010 "was because he was disappointed by the internal [Hamas-Fatah] conflict and by the United States' failure to support Palestinians."

Meanwhile, Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina, warned that "the current political vacuum which resulted from the failure of the peace process will soon be filled with violence leading to a serious shake up in the security of the whole region." To avoid this, he said, "the US administration should immediately start exerting pressure on the government of Israel and make them comply with their share of the "peace process," he added, according to the PA's WAFA news agency.

Abbas' announcement came last Thursday in Ramallah. Confirming rumors, he said the decision was over Israel's intransigence on settlements and the international community's indifference to it. It also came days after Palestinians were left stunned when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised as unprecedented Netanyahu's offer to limit West Bank construction to some 3,000 additional housing units.

Abbas: Peace deal was close under Olmert

Published yesterday (updated) 09/11/2009 22:01

 Bethlehem – Ma’an –

 Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were close to reaching a peace deal in the last round of formal negotiations, President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday.

Abbas claimed that the two sides were nearing a breakthrough in talks that were broken off last year when Israel launched its war on the Gaza Strip. The present Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said, is simply uninterested he peace, he said.

"We sat and negotiated with the Israelis over drawing borders and we negotiated these borders with [former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [former Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni," Abbas was quoted as saying.

According to the Palestinian Authority’s WAFA news agency, Abbas told a gathering of business figures at his compound in Ramallah, “We must continue to have faith in peace, security and we must believe in the development of our country and our national unity.”

“We accepted international legitimacy and we accepted the international law and we accepted the roadmap and we offered all commitments and we honored all the commitments that came in the roadmap and achieved a lot in terms of security and economic stability,” Abbas told his audience.

“But the other side has not done anything, they have not stopped settlements and they refuse to recognize the two states and they have not accepted the international terms of reference that were ratified by the entire world and despite all of this, they say they reject preconditions,” he said.

“We have not applied preconditions on anyone. … it seems that they [Israelis] do not want peace and they refuse to stop settlements and they don’t want the two state solution, so I really don’t know what do they want. This is our position and we will not give up our position and we will not give up our constants and the other side has to think about what they want to do if they really want peace.”

He continued, by addressing the currently stalled US peace initiative. “Obama at the beginning said that the most important issue is to freeze the settlements but then the settlement freeze is not a condition anymore.”