Israel is working toward establishing a state for Jewish settlers in the West
Bank and Jerusalem instead of a Palestinian state, PLO Secretary-General Yasser
Abed Rabbo claimed on Saturday.
He said that there would be no
negotiations with Israel in the near future due to the wide gap between the
sides.
Abed Rabbo also denied that the PA was planning to relay a message
to Israel via Jordan, detailing the Palestinians’ conditions for resuming direct
peace talks.
The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV channel reported over the
weekend that Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh was slated to deliver the
Palestinian message to Israel after bringing it to the attention of the
Americans.
“There is no such message and we haven’t handed one to
anyone,” Abed Rabbo told the PA’s Voice of Palestine radio station. “These
reports are nothing but speculations and assessments.”
Abed Rabbo said
that Israel was continuing to build in settlements “so that it could establish a
state for settlers, and not for Palestinians, in the West Bank and
Jerusalem.”
Israel wants to prepare a new map for the Palestinian
territories in order to impose it on the Palestinians and the world, he
added.
“This, at a time when the Palestinians are seeking a negotiated
solution on the basis of international legitimacy,” Abed Rabbo said, ruling out
the possibility that the peace talks would resume in the near
future.
Israel, he charged, does not want to launch a serious peace
process. Rather, it wants contact with the Palestinians, he said.
Abed
Rabbo said that Israel also does not want to see an end to the split between the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
He claimed that Israel was pushing toward
placing the Gaza Strip under Egyptian control.
The PLO official blamed
differences within Hamas for the failure of the recent Qatari-brokered
reconciliation agreement between PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader
Khaled Mashaal.
Ahmed Assaf, a Fatah spokesman in the West Bank, said on
Saturday that the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip has rejected the
Qatari-engineered deal “because they want to preserve their privileges and
illegitimate jobs.”