Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday he does not
want Palestinians divided into two separate political entities in
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where the Islamist group Hamas
seized control last month.
"The solution remains two peoples, two states - a Palestinian
state and a Jewish state," Olmert told Italian newspaper
Corriere della Sera during a visit to Israel and the
Palestinian territories by Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.
"We are not stupid. We don't want to separate Gaza from the West
Bank. We know that a million and a half Palestinians live in the
Strip. How can they be separated from the others?"
Hamas, which has rejected Western demands to recognize Israel,
renounce violence and accept existing Israeli-Palestinian interim
peace accords, took over the Gaza Strip last month after routing
secular Fatah forces loyal to the West Bank-based President Mahmoud
Abbas.
The Palestinian president then expelled Hamas from the unity
government and formed an emergency Cabinet in the West Bank.
Olmert told Spain's leading newspaper, El Pais, in an
interview published yesterday that Hamas is a "destructive,
extremist force" with the sole aim of violent confrontation with
Israel.
He said he does not foresee any reconciliation between Hamas and
Abbas of Fatah, who he says once told him that he would never make
peace with the militant group and would always combat it.
"I personally do not believe in a reconciliation between Hamas
and Abu Mazen," Olmert was quoted as saying, referring to Abbas'
nickname. "Abu Mazen himself has been a witness of how they were
preparing to kill Palestinians with such brutality that I've never
seen in my life."
The rival Palestinian factions traded more accusations this
week. Abbas claimed that Hamas had allowed al-Qaida members to
enter Gaza. Hamas denied the accusation and said Abbas was trying
to whip up sentiment against them.
(China Daily via agencies July 11, 2007)
