PA official vows: 'We'll hit Hamas with an iron fist'

Fatah official Dahlan says negotiations doomed to fail because US is biased in Israel's favor; PA police promise Hamas crack down.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
dahlan 311 (photo credit: AP)
dahlan 311
(photo credit: AP)
Palestinian Authority security forces have vowed to arrest Hamas members and bring order to the West Bank, according to a Thursday report by London daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
"We arrested hundreds of Hamas members, and we'll continue to do so," a high-ranking Palestinian Authority official told Asharq. "We will prevent them, however we can, from bringing anarchy to the West Bank. We will hit them with an iron fist."
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Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank arrested about 300 Palestinians following Tuesday night’s attack that killed four Israelis. Hamas claimed responsibility for an additional attack, on Wednesday night, in which two Israelis were injured.
PA security sources and Hamas officials said the crackdown was the one of the largest operations of its kind against Hamas since the establishment of the PA in 1994.
'The negotiations' fate is failure'
Also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Fatah official Muhammad Dahlan said that the PA went to washington without a "safety net" or promises it can rely on, and added that spoken promises from Washington can not be trusted.
"I am convinced that America's mission is to satisfy [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu, and not to continue the peace process," Dahlan claimed. "This will not bring peace, because in the core subjects, one side will not change the stances it presented in the past."
Dahlan predicted: "The negotiations' fate is failure."
Dahlan also accused of US Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell of leaving "his primary job as a negotiator, and became Netanyahu's public relations person."
The Fatah official added that the US pressured the Palestinians to go from indirect to direct talks because of "internal conflicts and Mitchell's failure to convince Netanyahu to make progress on any subject."
"[PA President Mahmoud] Abbas went to negotiations because of the Arab League, not because of his personal opinon," Dahlan told Asharq.