Ramallah, March 29: An aide to the Palestinian president said Monday Mahmoud Abbas is making a heavy push for reconciliation with Hamas and is willing to give up hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid if that’s what it takes to forge a Palestinian unity deal.
“The Palestinians need American money, but if they use it as a way of pressuring us, we are ready to relinquish that aid,” aide Azzam Ahmad said.
The comments indicate that Abbas may be giving up on stalled peace talks with Israel and prefers to pursue unity with Gaza’s Hamas rulers in a push toward independence.
The sides have been divided since Hamas overran the Gaza Strip in 2007, expelling forces loyal to Abbas.
Abbas has ordered lawmakers to “complete draft legislation for a future state within six months, to present to the international community and win United Nations recognition of independent statehood according to the 1967 borders,” Israel Radio reported Monday.
Abbas met Saturday with Hamas in an attempt to end nearly four years of infighting that has complicated the quest for a Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting in the occupied West Bank – the first to involve Abbas in a year – had a relatively modest goal, to arrange a trip by Abbas to Hamas-ruled Gaza for more talks. He has not set foot in the territory since the Hamas takeover.
The comments by Ahmad also came following a rise in Israeli-Palestinian tensions along the border with the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s prime minister warned Palestinian fighters in Gaza Monday of a “military retaliation” if they resume firing rockets at southern Israeli communities.
Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud party it must be clear that Israel will not tolerate “a drizzle of rockets and missiles” on its cities.
Netanyahu spoke at a meeting Monday of his Likud party, after two days of relative quiet along the border with the Palestinian coastal strip.
Netanyahu said if the attacks continue, “there will be an even more painful military retaliation.”
Israel launched a wide military offensive into Gaza two years ago, trying to end years of daily Palestinian rocket attacks.
An Israeli air strike killed two Gaza fighters Sunday. Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigade, claimed the men as its own and said it would respond to the “crime” against them.
Hamas later issued a statement that made no mention of the incident, but repeated a call for calm agreed with Islamic Jihad and other factions at a meeting Saturday.
Separately, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Monday that Israel is watching protests in Syria – it’s northern neighbor – particularly closely.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Peres said the weeklong series of anti-government demonstrations that have rocked the country “changes the status quo in Syria.”
Peres, who is on a two-day visit to Switzerland, said popular revolutions in the Middle East could give his country better neighbors, if Arab states become more democratic and prosperous.
Peres said poverty and oppression in the region have fed resentment against Israel and “the better our neighbors will have it, we shall have better neighbors.” He said changes in Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere carry “great hopes and also great dilemmas.”
——–Agencies