Abbas: Israel pushing Palestinians to civil war
Reuters
Date: 11-15-05
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel on Tuesday of trying to avoid peace talks and push Palestinians into civil war by insisting that militants be disarmed ahead of any negotiations on statehood.
Abbas said in a speech that Israel was acting as though it had "no peace partner," shortly after a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meant to encourage peacemaking following Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
It was not the first time that Abbas had warned that disarming militants could risk civil war, but it was some of his strongest criticism of Israel since the Gaza pullout in September.
"(Israel) is seeking to impose a very dangerous option, and that is a long-term solution based on setting up a state with provisional borders controlled by the Israelis, divided by settlements into isolated cantons," he said.
His speech marked the anniversary of a Palestinian declaration of independence from exile in 1988.
Israelis and Palestinians reached a U.S.-brokered deal on Tuesday to improve access for Gaza, but there has been little sign of movement on peacemaking following the withdrawal. Sporadic violence has discouraged diplomacy.
Israel says it is committed to a U.S.-backed peace "road map" for a Palestinian state, but neither side has met its pledges -- the Palestinians to start disarming militants and Israel to freeze West Bank settlement building.
Abbas accused Israel of: "a determination that Palestinians pass through a civil war" because of its insistence that negotiations cannot start before the disarming of militant groups waging an uprising since talks failed in 2000.
Rice renewed U.S. pressure on Abbas to act against the armed groups. She also pushed Israel on the question of settlement building.
Palestinians have long accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of trying to use the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a ruse to seal a permanent hold on much larger chunks of the West Bank.
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