Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei attacked Tony Blair's planned London meeting on Palestinian reform on Thursday, saying what was really needed was a peace conference. Qorie would not be in a position to decide whether Palestinians attend the meeting proposed by the British prime minister, but the comments were a clear sign of division within the new Palestinian leadership after Yasser Arafat's death. Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Mahmoud Abbas, frontrunner to succeed Arafat, on Wednesday welcomed Blair's proposal to host a conference on Palestinian reform next year. Qorei said he rejected Blair's suggestion that Palestinians needed reform before there could be progress on the peace process.
| "Hell, no! We're happy and efficient like we are! We don't need no reforms!" |
"We reject these remarks. They are unacceptable and we are capable and have the means and expertise for peace and negotiations," Qorei told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "It is the Israeli side that requires rehabilitation for peace not us. We are in need of a peace conference and not a meeting."
| There aren't many things they don't reject, are there? |
Blair gave more details of his planned London conference during a visit to the Middle East on Wednesday, saying that it would focus on Palestinian political, economic and security reform. Israel has no plans to attend. Diplomats said Blair's conference idea was a scaled down version of what had originally been grander plans for a meeting to help revive Middle East peace efforts.
| That's probably because cooler and more realistic heads in Washington don't want to go rushing into things. This is a grand opportunity for the Paleostinians, and if they hold true to form they'll go out of their way to miss it. It looks like Qurei and Hamas are doing just that. |
Meanwhile, the radical Islamic movement Hamas fiercely criticised British Prime Minister Tony Blair's plan to hold a Middle East conference in London and urged the Palestinian Authority not to participate. Ismail Haniya, one of the movement's senior figures in the Gaza Strip, said the aim of the conference was "to intensify the pressure on the Palestinian Authority to undertake structural reforms for the benefit of Israel".
| "Structural reforms, of course, would be of no benefit to the Paleostinians. With our low 60 percent unemployment rate, why, we're doing just fine, a veritable model of development!" |
Haniya added in a statement that the conference was designed to "make it appear that the Palestinian people and the resistance, and not the occupation and oppression, is the origin of the problem in the region". |