Israel and the Palestinians must continue negotiating despite Hamas' rise to power in the Palestinian Authority, Labor Party Chairman Amir Peretz and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday in a joint press conference following a meeting at the Allenby Bridge.
‘We have no war with the Muslim world,’ Peretz said after the meeting. ‘We have no war with the Arab world. We have no war with the Palestinian people. We do have a battle against the terrorist organizations.’
Abbas concurred. ‘We are against all forms of violence,’ he said. ‘Violence harms the two peoples. We want calm and truce, and final-status negotiations, because we and the Israelis are tired of wars. We want stability. We want to rest, and to live as real neighbors.’
He said that he hoped intensive negotiations would begin after the Israeli elections and pledged that any agreement would be submitted to the Palestinian public in a referendum. He also promised to work to prevent ‘terror’.
Peretz said that Israel cannot cooperate with Hamas, ‘which does not recognize Israel,’ but that dialogue with moderate elements in the PA must continue. ‘This meeting sends a message to both sides that we will not lose hope, that we will distinguish between the war on the ‘terrorist’ organizations and the desire for peace,’ he said.
He also said that Israel should continue to transfer tax revenues collected on the PA's behalf to the Palestinians, but not to the Hamas government. Instead, he proposed, the money should be given to the Palestinian National Council, which is dominated by Abbas's Fatah movement.
In general, he said, aid to Palestinians must continue, since ‘any humanitarian harm will cause a radicalization of moderate elements.’