[ 17/09/2011 - 04:26 PM ]
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has expressed its opposition to a unilateral move by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to try and gain a seat in the United Nations next week, saying that the party rejects any step that concedes Palestinian territories or the rights of the Palestinians.
In an official statement on Friday, Hamas stressed that the decision to go to the UN was a unilateral step by Abbas in contravention of the Hamas-Fatah unity agreement.
The step “also lacks guarantees and is based on the ‘experimentation and expectations approach’, the same previous settlement approach that has caused harm to the Palestinians,” Hamas added, emphasizing that statehood and self-determination are the right of the people.
On Friday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared on television that he would seek full membership for the Palestinians with 1967 borders in the United Nations Security Council.
Abbas explained that the request entailed that he would address the General Assembly on 23 September and request that the Secretary-General conveys that to the head of the Security Council.
Abbas however did not detail future steps by the PA should the U.S. use its veto power in the Security Council to scupper the move, as both the U.S. President and Secretary of State have vowed to do in recent statements.
In the speech, Abbas said he wanted to resume negotiations with Israel after all was said and done at the UN, adding that the move was not aimed at isolating Israel as a state but rather at isolating Israeli policies and the occupation.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri described Abbas’s Friday speech on the UN bid as being unconvincing and unacceptable.
There are major risks involved in the step, Abu Zuhri said in a statement to the Palestinian information center, and it could undermine such national rights as the right of return, resistance, and self-determination.
The Foreign Ministry of the Government in Gaza also objected to the move on the basis that it does not include any real guarantees of that the steps would be translated on the ground but only promises and expectations.
Speculations still arise as to why Abbas would insist on applying for statehood at the UN while the United States has vowed to veto the request at the UN Security Council.
Rights expert in the West Bank Amer Khalid objected to the move arguing that previous resolutions had given 44 percent of Palestine to the Palestinians, while, if successful, the PA’s move would reduce that to only 22 percent of those territories.
Responding to Abbas’s statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that peace could not be achieved by unilateral steps at the United Nations.
Meanwhile, Israeli Radio has reported that Israeli military commanders have been bracing in recent months to deal with clashes that could break out after the UN move.
The sources said the Israeli army has deployed reinforcements across the West Bank in a comprehensive plan to cope with a possible escalation. But at this stage reserve units have not been called.
Hamas calls on factions to weigh UN bid
[ 17/09/2011 - 06:16 PM ]
DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Palestinian resistance organization Hamas has said that it would back any political move that would achieve international support for the Palestinian right of liberty, self-determination, and sovereignty as long as those moves were not at the expense of national rights.
“The Palestinian Authority’s application for membership of Palestine as a state in the United Nations was unfortunately done unilaterally...and does not come in the framework of integrated, agreed upon national struggle, but only as an extension of the peace process,” Hamas said in a fresh statement on Saturday.
Hamas reiterated its conviction that the way to liberate the Palestinians is through resistance as well as political and popular struggle.
Our people are in urgent need of liberate the land practically to establish a sovereign Palestinian state and true independence, and not ongoing talks of a state that does not exist on the ground,” the statement reads.
The statement also calls on Fatah and other Palestinian factions to further discuss the UN bid with the objective of producing a national strategy in order to be able to achieve self-determination.
On Friday night, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared on television that he would go ahead with plans to apply for full membership in the United Nations.
Hamas spokesman Tahir al-Nono said that Abbas’s speech has raised a number of questions pertaining to the Palestinians’ future, especially as relates to negotiations with Israel.
He told the Palestinian Information Center that several issues such as the right of the Palestinian refugees remain ambiguous, emphasizing that Hamas would not provide “a cover” for any venture that detracts from any of the Palestinians’ rights, referring to the UN bid.
Elsewhere on Friday, senior Hamas official in Lebanon, Ali Baraka asserted that the conflict with Israel would not end until the Palestinians achieve freedom, return, and independence.
This followed an annual rally in the Lebanese capital Beirut to commemorate the casualties in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
This is zionist based disinformation.
ReplyDeleteThis is an attempt by israel to scuttle the bid for Palestinian statehood.
This is simply not true.
Do not believe it.
The only chance for Palestinians to not be completely genocided off their own land is for statehood through the UN.
Hamas been co-opted by the iraelis.
ReplyDeleteThe TEA party was co-opted.
Julian Assange was co-opted.
Co-opted: Infiltrated, led and neutralised.
"The best way to control the opposition is to lead it."