Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Annapolis Conference: Another Palestinian Carrot

By: Dr. Elias Akleh

Contributed by Lucia in Spain

"As expected by a majority the hailed Annapolis Conference did not produce any positive results. On the contrary it took the Palestinian cause back to 1993 Oslo period when the PLO and the Israeli government initially agreed to negotiate.

The Abbas-led Palestinian negotiating team is the same team, who negotiated the miserably failed Oslo agreement and the many barren negotiating meetings that followed. These negotiators had not learned from their experience that Israel had always sabotaged peace talks with their unreasonable demands and reservations, and had never followed any agreement. The team had lost the trust of their people long time ago and was booted out of the Palestinian Authority after the Palestinians elected Hamas to represent them through a free democratic election. This team went to Annapolis without getting the approval or the authority of Palestinian Legislative Council to negotiate and to make final decisions on behalf of the Palestinians. Abbas had ignored the demands of all Palestinian factions, including many in Fatah, not to go to Annapolis. He does not represent the Palestinians majority but Fatah’s ruling elite; a small group who had hijacked Fatah movement, ignored the rest of Palestinian factions, and turned their backs on their own people to serve the Israeli/American interests in order to keep their power position and to keep receiving more bribes into their own pockets......."

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