Tuesday 30 November 2010

Bardawil: Wikileaks revelations about Gaza war are not new


[ 30/11/2010 - 09:50 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Senior Hamas official Salah Al-Bardawil said that what was revealed by Wikileaks website about the prior knowledge of de facto president Mahmoud Abbas of the last Israeli war before it was waged on the Gaza Strip was not new.

In a press release on Monday, Bardawil added that before Wikileaks disclosed its documents, his Movement had accused Abbas and his authority many times of being involved in one way or another in the Gaza war in order to undermine the rule of Hamas and topple it.

Regarding Wikileaks' talk about the presence of a US veto on the inter-Palestinian reconciliation, the Hamas official affirmed that this information was already known by many people, and Abbas himself and some of his aides admitted there was such a veto.

He also accused Washington of knowing already what Wikileaks was going to publish in order to force Abbas to be more submissive to Israel's demands and negotiate with it without complaining.

The latest documents released by Wikileaks stated that the regime of Abbas and the Egyptian leadership were informed previously about Israel's intention to wage a war on Gaza.

These documents asserted that Israeli premier Ehud Barak contacted Cairo and Abbas, and held consultations with them about Israel's intent to regain its control over Gaza after routing Hamas.

Among these documents was an official paper issued by the US embassy in Tel Aviv stating that Barak told a delegation from the congress in 2009 that the Israeli government conducted these contacts with Cairo and Abbas before the war and kept in touch with them during the military aggression on Gaza.

In response to this information, the France news agency (AFP) quoted chief negotiator of the Palestinian authority Saeb Erekat as saying that what was published by this website confirmed the credibility of Abbas when he tried repeatedly to persuade Hamas to sign Egypt's reconciliation paper so as to avoid the war.

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