Hamas: Blair's comments show international meddling in Palestinian internal politics

Date: 17 / 05 / 2008 Time: 14:47
Gaza - Ma'an –

Hamas criticized former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, the International Quartet's envoy to the Middle East, on Saturday for comments he made about strengthening the Palestinian Authority's (PA) security forces.

Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said that Blair's remarks in an interview with the Jerusalem post were "a clear confession of the involvement of international actors including the Quartet in the internal Palestinian fighting."

Blair indicated that PA forces currently participating in a US-funded training course in Jordan would be better than the forces that were defeated by Hamas during the fighting in Gaza in June 2007.

Abu Zuhri, added that "These actors are still going on with their role of arming and training the Palestinian sides one against the other … these statements are proof." Abu Zuhri said that Blair's comments also proved that the Palestinian security services in the West Bank are serving Israeli interests.

"These acts will fail in destroying the resistance and the outcome will be the opposite." He called on international actors to stop intervening in Palestinian affairs and to "take Gaza as a lesson."

Fearing an attack on their own forces, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip from US-armed and trained security forces affiliated with Fatah. The United States has continued to help equip the Fatah-allied forces in the West Bank since then.

Blair: West Bank security key step to Palestinian state

Date: 17 / 05 / 2008 Time: 10:19
Bethlehem - Ma'an –

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Quartet Envoy to the Middle East, has defended the ongoing peace negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and the internationally-backed security redeployment in the West Bank.

In an interview published in the Jerusalem Post on Friday, Blair said that the Fatah-allied Palestinian security forces are being trained to make them more effective.

Most recently, hundreds of Palestinian security officers moved into the city of Jenin. Blair said he hopes that Israel will be able to rely on the Palestinian Authority's forces to suppress attacks against Israel.

"If there is not some credible change on the ground for the Palestinians, it is far harder for them to make the compromises necessary for peace," Blair said. Similarly, "if the Israelis cannot see any prospect of the Palestinians achieving proper governing capability, particularly in the area of security, then it becomes not credible for them to believe that they can accept a Palestinian state."

Blair told the Jerusalem Post that he is not certain whether Palestinian and Israeli negotiators can hammer out an agreement before the end of the year: "From my conversations with both sides, I think they are genuinely trying to make progress [on final status issues]. Whether they can or not is an open question. The view that they are going through the motions is completely wrong. They are settling down and trying to work things out."

External to the negotiations, Blair's mandate includes putting together "the first steps of [Palestinian] economic and social development," aiming for some "moderate improvement in access and movement that is consistent with Israel's security."

"Unless you change the reality on the ground," he said, "you don't create space for the political negotiations to succeed."

According to the Jerusalem Post, Blair, "acknowledged that the Paris conference last December had failed to produce the Palestinian security reform plan he had anticipated, but said that since then 'a number of streams' were being advanced to "fundamentally alter Palestinian security capability."

"The West Bank economy, after several years of sharp contraction, is now growing," he said, with the World Bank predicting at least 3% growth for 2008.

Blair also called the situation in the Gaza Strip" unsustainable."

"It is important to emphasize to the outside world - and most people don't understand - that we're trying to urge Israel to get fuel into Gaza, and then the extremists come and kill the people bringing the fuel in. It's a crazy situation," said Blair.

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