RAMALLAH, West Bank (Rooters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction ruled out talks with Hamas on Thursday as Israel warned any such dialogue with the Islamists could "torpedo" a peace deal with the Jewish state.Palestinian sources familiar with the matter said members of Hamas and Fatah had discussed holding peace talks, but Fatah leaders said they had not backed any meeting and rejected dialogue with Hamas unless it cedes control of the Gaza Strip, which it seized in fighting with Abbas's forces in June.
"What happened in Gaza was a military coup against legitimacy and against democracy," Abdallah Franji,
And who embodies Democracy and Legitimacy better than al fatah, I ask you?
who is close to Abbas and a member of secular Fatah's central committee, told Rooters. "If they retreat then we can talk. Now we cannot."
Abbas dismissed the Islamist Hamas-led Palestinian government in June after the violence in Gaza, ushering an easing of U.S. and Israeli sanctions and plans for a peace conference next month.
Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh, who was prime minister until June, said late on Wednesday Hamas was ready to hold talks with Fatah and hinted it might be ready to give up control of the enclave.
| In about a hundred years. |
Israel and the West have shunned Hamas until it recognises the Jewish state's right to exist.
Fatah leaders rejected Haniyeh's calls for talks and said Hamas, struggling with the effects of an international boycott and an Israeli blockade of Gaza, was lying about wanting peace so as to shore up Palestinian support.
| Well yeah, Hamas is lying? Blinding glimpse of the obvious. |
But a Fatah official said on Thursday the meeting between Rajoub and Nazzal was "non-binding" and said Rajoub, a one-time senior Fatah security official who has been pushing for talks with Hamas, did not have the backing of Fatah leadership. "With the international restrictions on Hamas, they have started to feel the crunch," the official said. Rajoub declined to comment on the record.
One source close to the talks said an exiled hard line Hamas leader would arrive in Cairo next week to prepare for talks between the factions.
Fatah refuses to talk to Hamas unless it pulls out of its security compounds in Gaza. Hamas says ceding control of the compounds must come as part of a deal, not as a precondition.
One Palestinian source said Hamas-Fatah talks would also touch on a Hamas ceasefire with Israel that could include a prisoner swap deal.
A Palestinian official said last month a prominent Hamas official tried to open discussions with Israel to ease confrontation in Gaza but was rebuffed by the Jewish state.