Hamas left out of loop on UN draft proposal, official charges
Leader blasts Abbas for not consulting group on eight amendments to statehood bid; chief Palestinian negotiator says vote Wednesday
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has not consulted his government’s partner Hamas on a draft resolution calling on the UN Security Council to set a binding timetable for ending Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a Hamas official charged Saturday.
The accusation from Hamas deputy political chief Moussa Abu Marzouk came as other Palestinian officials also panned the statehood bid for not going far enough to secure Palestinian rights.
“It is not enough to say that eight points have been amended in the paper submitted to the Security Council,” Abu Marzouk wrote on his Facebook page. “Our Palestinian people must know what these amended points are, and why the provisional leadership framework wasn’t summoned to approve the proposed resolution. Who submitted the previous resolution, which relinquished the rights and principles of the Palestinian people? Whoever did so should be held to account.”
Abu Marzouk was referring to comments made by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Friday to the Al-Arabiya news channel, saying that the Palestinian leadership has introduced eight amendments to the draft resolution that was submitted to the Security Council by Jordan on December 18.
Erekat wouldn’t specify the exact changes made to the document, mentioning only the insertion of a clause defining East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state and a demand to release Palestinian prisoners according to a fixed timetable.
Erekat told Palestinian radio on Sunday that the draft proposal — stipulating a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines by the end of 2017 — will be submitted to the Security Council by Jordan on Monday, and voted on by Wednesday at the latest.
On December 22, Abu Marzouk complained that the original draft resolution submitted to the UN was “different from one presented to the national and Islamic factions” and included “many compromises on our national rights and principles.”
“Abbas has submitted a shameful document to the Security Council, void of all our rights and with no one knowing its contents, and they want us to stand behind it!” he told labor union leaders in Gaza Saturday.
Hamas and Fatah have been at odds over diplomatic issues since the swearing in of a national-unity government in June, officially ending a seven-year political schism between the two movements.
Meanwhile, Gaza-based Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said the Palestinian resolution was “disastrous” and had “no future in the land of Palestine.” He also opposed any deal that would have Jerusalem as a shared capital or be based on the 1967 “borders” rather than the 1948 demarcations.
The Palestinian resolution was opposed last week by jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, who said he supported the unilateral move to go to the UN but slammed the current bid as an “unjustified fallback which will have a very negative impact on the Palestinian position,” Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported.
The senior Fatah leader said any mention of land swaps with Israel must be removed and that the bid should focus on the major issues: settlement expansion, Jerusalem, and the blockade on Gaza.
Barghouti also said the Palestinian prisoners issue should take a central place in the document.
The Times of Israel Community.