Palestinian DFLP Figure Urges US President to Take “Specific” Stands
Text of report by privately-owned Palestinian Ramattan News Agency website
["Ramzi Rabbah: The Palestinians Should Affirm to President Bush that there is no Possibility of a Negotiating Track Against a Background of Settlement Building and Aggression" - Ramattan News Agency headline]
Dr Ramzi Rabbah, member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s [DFLP] Political Bureau, has called on all Palestinian factions and officials to unite and confront the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
In a press statement, Rabbah affirmed that US President George W. Bush’s visit to the region should demonstrate serious positions and not be limited to placing certain political points on record.
Rabbah said: The stepped-up Israeli attacks that have killed 11 Palestinians and wounded numerous others and the destruction that has befallen Palestinian homes, properties, and farms east of Khan Yunis is an indication that Olmert’s government is intent on escalating the situation, using an iron-fist policy against the Palestinians, and tightening the siege on the Gaza Strip at the time that Arab and international circles, human rights organizations, and the United Nations are calling for lifting the starvation siege from the strip and halting the bloody and daily Israeli assaults.
Regarding the possibility of linking Bush’s visit to Israel’s motive in carrying out the new aggression, Rabbah remarked: This proves that Olmert’s government persists in its policy of escalation on feeble security grounds. On the eve of Bush’s visit Israel seeks to send a message that it will attach more importance to the security issue than anything else. It wishes to use this aggression to divert attention from the building of settlements and the ongoing effort to impart a greater Jewish character to Jerusalem and confiscate more land. Therefore we urge the Palestinian [National] Authority to stop the negotiations until the building of settlements stops completely.
He added: This represents Israel’s escape from the required political actions that it should take in the context of the current negotiations and an attempt to confine the talks to the security sphere. It wishes to delay the other processes and shirk its commitments. We believe that President Bush, in line with the traditional US policy, will adopt biased positions and will not put pressure on his ally to halt its aggression and its escalating assaults. Perhaps he will again use Israel’s feeble security excuses to cover up its military escalation.
Rabbah stressed that the Palestinians should declare to President Bush and the world that there is no possibility of restoring the peace process or for the negotiations to continue against the background of settlement building, the annexation and racial separation wall, the persistence of Israel’s unfair practices against the Palestinian people, and the continuing detention of prisoners. He added that the negotiations should be linked to halting the building of settlements, ending the escalating aggression against the Palestinians, and putting pressure to terminate the siege that is smothering the Gaza Strip economically, socially, and from a humanitarian perspective. A call should go out to end all these practices, he said.
He said that if Bush is serious about the political moves that he is carrying out, he should adopt clear, specific, and practical positions regarding Israel’s settlement activities and its bloody military assaults.
He added: We, the Palestinians, should make efforts with the United Nations and other international organizations to obtain positions that condemn the rising Israeli aggression.
Rabbah called for ending the condition of uncertainty and attrition in which the Palestinians live by creating a suitable climate for a comprehensive Palestinian dialogue in order to restore the Palestinian unity that has been destroyed by divisions and the political separation between Gaza and the West Bank. He pointed out that Hamas should take the first step by making a declaration that it is abandoning the outcome of the military action it took. He said that the Fatah Movement should declare that it is prepared to begin a dialogue immediately. He added that in this way the Palestinians would be able to embark on a comprehensive national dialogue in order to implement the provisions of the agreement reached and signed in the National Accord Document. They should also implement the Cairo Declaration’s provisions about rebuilding and reviving the PLO’s institutions. He said that the way out of the current crisis is to have the will to carry out all these steps.
He said: This will help us to confront this aggression and resist the dangers of Israel’s settlement building and its policy of continued occupation. If we carry out these steps, we will confront the world and the US administration with their responsibilities. This cannot be done without uniting the Palestinian ranks and rebuilding the Palestinian national institutions on democratic, electoral principles.
Originally published by Ramattan News Agency website, Gaza, in Arabic 1744 6 Jan 08.
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