Taysir Kubaa, deputy head of the Palestinian National Council, on Thursday called on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to abandon the path of negotiations with Israel which, he said, does not lead to success for the Palestinians.
Speaking in an interview with Hamas's Palestine newspaper, Kubaa said that the Palestinian reliance on false negotiations is wrong, since negotiations are “worthless”, as he put it, and “the only option we face is a return to national unity and enlisting our people to the forces of the struggle.”
Referring to the French peace initiative which calls for an international conference to renew peace talks, Kubaa said it was contrary to the interests of the “Palestinian people”. This initiative, he claimed, “seeks to cancel the right of return and recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and this is inconsistent with our Palestinian interests.”
His comments illustrate once again the opposition from within the ranks of the PLO to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas's approach, and the major difficulties he would face in reaching an agreement with Israel.
Meanwhile, Abbas on Wednesday called on the UN Security Council to reject a key report by the diplomatic Quartet that condemned both Israeli building in Judea and Samaria, and Palestinian incitement to violence.
Abbas said in a statement the report "does not further the cause for peace."
"We hope that the Security Council does not support this report," he added.
And earlier this week, senior PA officials hinted that Abbas was planning to pass yet another anti-Israel resolution in the UN that would condemn Israel over its presence in Judea and Samaria.