Hamas Leader in Gaza Strip Rejects Land Swaps with Israel as Part of Modified Arab Peace Agreement
Hamas rebuffs Arabs for softening Israeli-Palestinian peace plan
May 3, 2013In meetings this week in Washington, Arab states appeared to soften their 2002 peace plan, acknowledging that Israelis and Palestinians may have to swap land in any eventual peace deal.
"The so-called new Arab initiative is rejected by our people, by our nation and no one can accept it," said Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas government in the coastal enclave.
"The initiative contains numerous dangers to our people in the occupied land of 1967, 1948 and to our people in exile."
RARE SPAT
The modified version was announced by Qatar's prime minister on Monday and Haniyeh's comments represented a rare public disagreement between Hamas and one of its main supporters.
The rich Gulf state has pledged over $400 million to fund housing projects in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas seized from the rival Palestinian Fatah faction in a brief civil war in 2007.
"To those who speak of land swaps we say: Palestine is not a property, it is not for sale, not for a swap and cannot be traded," Haniyeh said.
On Tuesday, he hailed the Arab League announcement as "a very big step forward."However, any peace moves will have to confront the fractured Palestinian political landscape with Abbas holding sway over parts of the West Bank and Hamas firmly entrenched in Gaza. Repeated attempts by the two sides to secure a political reunification of the two territories have failed.
Israel welcomes apparent Arab League softening of peace plan
The original Arab League proposal offered full recognition of Israel but only if it gave up all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war and accepted a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees. Israel, which has long said it would never return to narrow pre-1967 war borders, rejected the plan at the time.
"Israel welcomes the encouragement given by the Arab League delegation and the (U.S.) Secretary of State to the diplomatic process," a senior government official said after talks in Washington on Monday between an Arab League delegation and John Kerry on how to advance stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.In the 1967 conflict, Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip - areas Palestinians are now seeking for a state of their own. U.S.-hosted peace talks have been frozen since 2010 in a dispute over Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
After the meeting with Kerry, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, told reporters:
"The Arab League delegation affirmed that agreement should be based on the two-state solution on the basis of the 4th of June 1967 line, with the (possibility) of comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Thani's statement reflected longstanding Palestinian positions.
"Upon Israel's unequivocal acceptance of the two-state solution on the 1967 border, the State of Palestine as a sovereign country might consider minor agreed border modifications equal in size and quality, in the same geographic area, and that do not harm Palestinian interests," he said.Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, designated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be his chief peace negotiator with the Palestinians, described as "very positive" news of a possible shift in the Arab League position.
"It would allow the Palestinians to enter the room and make the needed compromise and it sends a message to the Israeli public that this is not just about us and the Palestinians," she told Army Radio.Israel has proposed land swaps with the Palestinians in the past - exchanges that would likely leave some settlements in place - but negotiators failed to clinch a final agreement.
Whatever the Arab League's stance, internal Palestinian divisions pose a serious obstacle, however. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has negotiated with Israel, holds sway only in the West Bank, while Islamist rival Hamas controls Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel or renounce violence.