WASHINGTON, March 27: The United States on Monday rejected an offer by the Hamas of a dialogue with the West, saying it first had to meet conditions laid out by the international community.
The reaction came shortly after incoming Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya said his Hamas government was ready to talk to the international community to end the Middle East conflict, but would not change its hardline stance on Israel.
His rejection of international demands for respect of past peace agreements drew a swift warning from Israel’s outgoing government that the policy would leave the Jewish state no choice but to fix its borders unilaterally.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack reacted coolly to the bid by Ismail Haniya for talks.
“In terms of dialogue, Hamas needs to meet the conditions laid out by the international community,” Mr McCormack told reporters. “The onus is now on Hamas.”
The quartet of diplomatic powers seeking Middle East peace — the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia — has demanded Hamas recognise Israel, ‘renounce violence’ and respect past accords with the Jewish state.
ISRAELI REACTION: An Israeli spokesman said the new Hamas-led Palestinian government would force Israel to act unilaterally if it continues.
“If we see that the Hamas programme is the government’s long-term policy, we will take our destiny into our own hands,” said Raanan Gissin, the spokesman for acting prime minister Ehud Olmert’s office.
“We will have to do it alone as we have done in the past,” he said, referring to last summer’s unilateral withdrawals from the Gaza Strip and four small northern West Bank outposts.
Mr Olmert has said that if his Kadima party wins Tuesday’s election, the new government’s top priority would be to fix Israel’s permanent borders in the West Bank by 2010.
“If Hamas continues this way, the Palestinian Authority will be defined as a terrorist entity,” Mr Gissin said, an assessment that will prompt the Jewish state to seal off Palestinian areas.
“We will disconnect Gaza from the West Bank and will consider all crossings into those areas as if they are with an enemy state,” he said.
Mr Gissin said he hoped Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas would use his powers to dissolve a Hamas government if it is endorsed by the Palestinian Legislative Council on Tuesday.
Mr Abbas ‘should take the necessary steps to dissolve the Hamas government’, he said.
The Israeli foreign ministry gave a more tempered but still negative reaction to the incoming Palestinian government’s programme.
“Unfortunately, Hamas continues to refuse to meet the benchmarks established by the international community,” its spokesman Mark Regev said.
“Hamas understands it has a serious problem with meeting the international consensus. Instead of dealing with the benchmarks, Haniya is playing verbal games,” Mr Regev said.
“Until Hamas accepts the three benchmarks, Hamas will not be a legitimate partner for dialogue.”
Mr Regev was unimpressed by Mr Haniya’s openness to holding talks with the so-called Middle East peace quartet, saying ‘Hamas has opposed every step towards peace over past 15 years and it hasn’t changed its positions’.—AFP
