Ramallah: A possible US recognition of a new Palestinian unity government that brings together rivals Hamas and Fatah will signal an American position that places the blame on the failure of Israel-Palestinian talks on the Israelis, Palestinian officials and analysts have said.
Martin Indyk, the US State Department’s Envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks has placed full responsibility for the failure of the peace talks on the Israelis.
According to the US online newspaper Washington Free Beacon, Indyk was heard publicly blaming the Israeli government for sabotaging the negotiations by pushing forward colony construction projects in the West Bank and the occupied East Jerusalem.
“In a 30-minute conversation, no one at the table mentioned a single wrong thing the Palestinians had done,” the Washington Free Beacon quoted its source as saying.
Indyk’s staff members were overheard saying that “they knew the truth as to why negotiations had failed — Israeli colony construction, which came way before the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied for official memberships in international treaties and conventions.”
Commenting on the issue and despite the US denial of the incident, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the US was “dead wrong” to blame Israeli colony construction for the collapse of the Mideast peace talks.
“The Americans have erred in the past regarding the [colonies] and they are erring big time today,” Liberman told the Israel TV Channel 2.
“There is no need to clash with the Americans, but you can’t capitulate either. What you could do is to offer an alternative and persuade the Americans,” he said.
The Israeli foreign minister said he will present his own alternative proposals for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Liberman’s plans include territorial swaps which would see Palestinian townships currently within the boundaries of the Israelis state offered to the Palestinians in exchange for Jewish colonies in the West Bank.
“There is no stalemate. Just because there are no negations going on right now does not mean that things are not happening,” Liberman was quoted as saying.
The Palestinians believe that the US does not hold them responsible for the failure of the peace talks in any way or another.
“The US will recognise the currently forming Palestinian unity government either in an independent statement or in a joint statement with the Mideast Quartet and that will be an indirect proof from the US Administration that it holds Israel fully responsible for the failure of the peace talks,” said Talal Okal, a Palestinian commentator and a political analyst.
“The Americans are not happy with the Israeli policies regarding the peace talks and are working on a basic change in those policies.”
Israel Radio on Sunday quoted a senior Israeli official as saying that the Mideast Quartet is likely to recognise the Palestinian unity government, provided the Islamist movement of Hamas was not directly represented in the cabinet.
The Israeli official said that the Quartet will issue a statement within the coming few days hindering the Israeli attempts to convince the international community to boycott the Palestinian unity government currently in formation.
President Abbas has repeatedly announced his commitment to the conditions made by the Quartet to gain recognition. Abbas vowed that his new unity government will renounce violence, recognise the Israeli regime and commit to all previous agreements.
Wasel Abu Yousuf, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), anticipated that the unity government will be formed and officially announced during the coming week.
“Nominations for the cabinet’s portfolios have been selected by the PLO delegation and Hamas in Gaza and those names will be offered to President Abbas to make his choices,” he told Gulf News.
Abu Yousuf said that as per the Doha agreement, Abbas is supposed to lead the unity government, but has suggested that it will be left for him to decide whether to lead the government or to recommend some other Palestinian to do the job.
On April 23, rivals Hamas and Fatah reached a reconciliation deal which adopted two previous agreements sealed in Cairo and Doha. The deal stipulated the formation of a unity government within five weeks and the conducting of Palestinian general elections six months later.
“The reconciliation deal is a deal of necessity for Hamas which will meet the required concessions to bring the deal to success,” Okal told Gulf News.
“Hamas cannot afford a failure of the deal and Fatah is implementing its own way to make all the possible gains.”
Okal said that the new Hamas position looks like the positions of other Palestinian factions, including the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, which categorically refuse the Oslo Accords but live with it.
“The reconciliation deal is a mere reverse of action on the Hamas side as the Hamas rhetoric is moving backward and changing,” he said.
