Abbas 'collaborator for the occupation’

Senior Israeli official: Signing an Agreement with Palestinians Depend on Abbas

22 August 2007

by Rami Almeghari

A senior Israeli official said on Wednesday that signing peace agreement with the Palestinians depends on whether President Mahmoud Abbas enjoys legitimacy in the Palestinian street.

The official, who spoke in a condition of anonymity to the Israeli daily Haartz, revealed that Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert and his aids held last week deliberations concerning a middle east peace conference, expected in fall.

“Israel faces a key challenge, whether Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is able to maintain a genuine control over the Palestinian people as well as over the bodies he is responsible for”, the Israeli official stressed.

“Abu Mazen, Abbas’s nickname, who works on fighting terrorism, is viewed by the Palestinian people as a ‘collaborator for the occupation’, he maintained.

According to the Israeli paper, Olmert and his aids had raised a question during their last week’s meeting, whether President Abbas will be able to take the Palestinians to statehood, governed by law.

Such remarks come while the moderate Abbas had outlawed the governing Islamist group ‘Hamas’ in Gaza and formed his own cabinet in Ramalah, in the wake of the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June.

Abbas has always voiced willingness to reach final peace agreement with Israel, in a time Hamas has rejected recognizing Israel and renouncing violence, but offered a long-term truce with the Hebrew state.

Washington called for an international peace conference in fall to work out possible solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on basis of the road map peace plan and the Arab states’ peace initiative that call for a viable Palestinian state on 1967 borders.