Hamas on Tuesday criticized the meeting of the Arab foreign ministries held at the Arab League in Cairo on Monday. During the meeting, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas briefed Arab foreign ministers on his peace talks with Israel and the inter-Palestinian reconciliation dialogue. The meeting was chaired by Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, who urged Arab countries take a solid and "decisive stance against those who shed Palestinian blood and deepen the Palestinian division."
"This requires only one Palestinian authority and one government, which controls the army and the security forces," al-Faisal said.
“At the forefront of the challenges we face is the disintegration and division witnessed on the Palestinian front, which led to fighting and bloodshed,” he said.
“This situation is seriously threatening to liquidate the Palestinian cause from its origin and convert it from being a cause of people living under brutal occupation to a worse model of dividing the divided and fragmenting the fragmented. This model warns us of its ability to spread unless we all bear our responsibilities and collectively change our reality,” the Saudi Gazette on Tuesday quoted al-Faisal as saying.
“There were several initiatives and sincere efforts in this regard ranging from holy Mecca, Sana’a to Cairo, which hosts the headquarters of the Arab League,” he said, adding: “However, these initiatives have not yet succeeded because private interests as well as regional and international interventions encouraging division have unfortunately overcome the supreme Palestinian national reconciliation.”
“If we all agree on the danger of the Israeli continuous aggression against the Palestinian people, we have also to assert that the Palestinian inter-fighting is no less serious. Therefore, it is now time for the Arab countries to take a firm stand against whoever sheds Palestinian blood, deepens the Palestinian division and does not apply what has been agreed upon among the Palestinians.”
On his part, Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, attacked the forum of the meeting. "Excluding the legal government (of Hamas) which harvested a majority in the elections and inviting the illegal government of Ramallah doesn't create a positive atmosphere to achieve success in the dialogue," he said .
The Hamas official, however, said that his movement is still adhered to the Palestinian dialogue as an important way out of the current crisis, adding that his movement is ready to deal with the Arab efforts in this respect. "But any Arab interference into the internal Palestinian situation should be balanced and should be based on respecting the outcome of the last general elections and the Palestinian law," said Abu Zuhri.
