Yasser Arafat on Wednesday dismissed as meaningless Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's reported comments that he would move some Jewish settlements as part of a unilateral plan for dealing with the Palestinian issue.
"It's all a show," Arafat told reporters outside his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Arafat said Sharon's actions belied his words: "The truth is the daily construction of settlements, and the daily construction of the fence."
Meanwhile, Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy political bureau chief of Hamas Movement, has held Arafat's Fatah Movement responsible for the negative conclusion of the inter-Palestinian dialogue in Cairo.
He said that Fatah’s insistence on the Palestinian factions’ approval of authorizing the Palestinian Authority to embark on political activities on the basis of the "roadmap" plan and on declaring a full ceasefire had foiled the dialogue.
The Hamas official, in an interview with the UAE daily Al-Khaleej published on Wednesday, said that it was impossible to rally unanimous support for those two demands.
He expressed conviction that the Cairo dialogue did not end up in failure but also did not end up in the required result. He pointed out that the mere meeting for all Palestinian factions for the second time in 20 years was of great importance. It further opened the door for breaking the ice and for an exchange of confidence among various parties, he noted.
Abu Marzouk said that the differences were not deepened but remained as is, noting that agreement on continuation of such dialogue was a positive step.
He rebuffed Fatah accusations to Hamas of deliberately foiling any Palestinian unanimity, noting that there was no such unanimity even before the emergence of Hamas on the Palestinian arena.
The Hamas leader underlined that the people calling for "stripping resistance" and igniting civil war in the process were isolated within Fatah and most of the cadres in Yasser Arafat's party were keen on cautiously dealing with this step.
Abu Marzouk said that his Movement did not share the views of PA premier Ahmed Qurei in solving the Palestinian-israeli conflict, noting that Qurei was insisting on the "roadmap" plan as the basis for his government’s policy.
The Hamas leader recalled that Qurei was one of the engineers of the "disastrous" Oslo agreements. He regretted the fact that the PA was not convinced that resistance was the only method leading to defeat of occupation. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
