Palestinians demonstrating in front of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on 15 July 15, 2013, as they protest against secret meetings between officials from the PLO and Israel. (Photo: AFP - Abbas Momani)
Conservative Palestinian Islamists and secular left-wing factions have come together to denounce a return to negotiations with Israel, local media reported.
Washington has been pushing to host Israeli and Palestinian negotiators within a week for the launch of so-called "final-status" talks on founding a Palestinian state.
But the US efforts are hampered by the very limited sway Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' US and Saudi-backed administration holds among Palestinians. A host of right-wing Israeli officials are also opposed to reviving talks.
Jamil Mizher, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Ma'an news agency that negotiations with Israel based on US conditions would be like "suicide" for the Palestinians, and would almost certainly allow the Israel to continue building settlements over occupied land.
Walid Awad, a member of the Marxist-inspired Palestinian People's Party, said Abbas had made a mistake by agreeing to return to negotiations with the occupying power without Palestinian conditions in place.
The talks will not be based on 1967 borders and Israeli settlement building will continue while negotiations take place, Awad said.
There is a decline in American power in the region, especially after the US failure to influence political outcomes in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and other countries, the leftist official said, stressing that the Palestinian leadership made a mistake in returning to talks.
Palestinian Islamists echoed the calls by their secular counterparts. A statement from the Islamic Jihad warned that following through with the US-backed talks would be a repeat of past failures to find a solution.
Jihad spokesman Shihab Dawod told Ma'an that the Palestinian Authority has made mistakes in the past that the Palestinian people are still suffering from today.
"There is national Palestinian consensus to refuse negotiations, but the PA responds to American pressures and blackmail," he added.
"Returning back to negotiations under these circumstances is like political suicide because the international and the regional situation does not provide any true support to the Palestinian people or to the Palestinian cause. The Arab countries are busy with internal issues."
A senior Hamas official said Saturday that the PA's return to negotiations was a "disaster" and a cover for the Israeli agenda of Judaization, settlement building and the displacement of Palestinians.
"Stopping political reconciliation for negotiations between the PA and Israel is very dangerous," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Ma'an.
US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Amman late on Friday that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had laid the groundwork to resume the frozen peace talks.
Meanwhile members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightist coalition government, including within his own party have also criticized the tentative talks.
Netanyahu's partner in the ruling Likud Beitenu faction, Avigdor Lieberman, ridiculed the idea that anything more than an interim accord might be achieved in the decades-old conflict.
"It's important to negotiate, and even more important for negotiations to be predicated on realism and not illusions," Lieberman wrote on Facebook. "There is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at least not in the coming years, and what's possible and important to do is conflict-management."
Transport Minister Yisrael Katz of Likud mocked Abbas over his limited power to govern the West Bank.
"Abu Mazen (Abbas) rules over Palestinians less than (President Bashar) Assad rules in Syria," Katz told reporters, referring to the more than two-year-old Islamist-let insurgency wracking Damascus.
"Just as no one would consider ceding any territory to Assad in the current situation, so certainly no one is thinking seriously of ceding territory to Abu Mazen at time when he doesn't completely rule over most of the Palestinian population."
(Ma'an, Reuters)
Washington has been pushing to host Israeli and Palestinian negotiators within a week for the launch of so-called "final-status" talks on founding a Palestinian state.
But the US efforts are hampered by the very limited sway Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' US and Saudi-backed administration holds among Palestinians. A host of right-wing Israeli officials are also opposed to reviving talks.
Jamil Mizher, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Ma'an news agency that negotiations with Israel based on US conditions would be like "suicide" for the Palestinians, and would almost certainly allow the Israel to continue building settlements over occupied land.
Walid Awad, a member of the Marxist-inspired Palestinian People's Party, said Abbas had made a mistake by agreeing to return to negotiations with the occupying power without Palestinian conditions in place.
The talks will not be based on 1967 borders and Israeli settlement building will continue while negotiations take place, Awad said.
There is a decline in American power in the region, especially after the US failure to influence political outcomes in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and other countries, the leftist official said, stressing that the Palestinian leadership made a mistake in returning to talks.
Palestinian Islamists echoed the calls by their secular counterparts. A statement from the Islamic Jihad warned that following through with the US-backed talks would be a repeat of past failures to find a solution.
Jihad spokesman Shihab Dawod told Ma'an that the Palestinian Authority has made mistakes in the past that the Palestinian people are still suffering from today.
"There is national Palestinian consensus to refuse negotiations, but the PA responds to American pressures and blackmail," he added.
"Returning back to negotiations under these circumstances is like political suicide because the international and the regional situation does not provide any true support to the Palestinian people or to the Palestinian cause. The Arab countries are busy with internal issues."
A senior Hamas official said Saturday that the PA's return to negotiations was a "disaster" and a cover for the Israeli agenda of Judaization, settlement building and the displacement of Palestinians.
"Stopping political reconciliation for negotiations between the PA and Israel is very dangerous," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Ma'an.
US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Amman late on Friday that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had laid the groundwork to resume the frozen peace talks.
Meanwhile members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightist coalition government, including within his own party have also criticized the tentative talks.
Netanyahu's partner in the ruling Likud Beitenu faction, Avigdor Lieberman, ridiculed the idea that anything more than an interim accord might be achieved in the decades-old conflict.
"It's important to negotiate, and even more important for negotiations to be predicated on realism and not illusions," Lieberman wrote on Facebook. "There is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at least not in the coming years, and what's possible and important to do is conflict-management."
Transport Minister Yisrael Katz of Likud mocked Abbas over his limited power to govern the West Bank.
"Abu Mazen (Abbas) rules over Palestinians less than (President Bashar) Assad rules in Syria," Katz told reporters, referring to the more than two-year-old Islamist-let insurgency wracking Damascus.
"Just as no one would consider ceding any territory to Assad in the current situation, so certainly no one is thinking seriously of ceding territory to Abu Mazen at time when he doesn't completely rule over most of the Palestinian population."
(Ma'an, Reuters)