News / Interviews

US, Israel against Palestinian unity: Author

Friday, 20 October 2017 11:38 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 20 October 2017 11:40 AM ]

Palestinian officials of rival Hamas and Fatah parties hold hands in a sign of national unity in Cairo in this photo released by Palestinian media on October 12, 2017.

US President Donald Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, has said any Palestinian government must recognize Israel and disarm the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas. To discuss the issue, Press TV has asked Richard Becker, author of ‘Palestine, Israel and the US Empire’ from San Francisco, and Richard Millett, a journalist and political commentator from London, to give their thought.

Becker said the agenda of the US and Israel is to divide different Palestinian factions in a bid to make them weak and pave the ground for the continuation of the occupation.

“The history of the United States and Israel has been to break the Palestinian unity to foster divisions between different Palestinian parties” in order to make the Palestinians weaker, he said on Thursday night.

Fatah and Hamas have agreed to enable the national unity government to carry out its work and assume its full responsibility in running the Gaza Strip, as is the case in the West Bank, by December 1, 2017.

PressTV-Hamas, Fatah reach reconciliation deal in Cairo

Following a fresh round of Egypt-brokered unity talks, rival Palestinian factions reach a unity deal that would end a 10-year political rifts between them.

Becker argued that the Israelis’ position has been to “block the formation of any kind of Palestinian state” and to reach the goal, “the US and Israel immediately intervened to try to prevent [the reunification of Palestinian factions] from happening.”

Israel wants to take more and more of the land of the Palestinians in the West Bank and pretends to be interested in the peace process, whereas the Tel Aviv regime puts preconditions that the Palestinian parties cannot accept, he noted.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet said in a statement on Tuesday that Tel Aviv would not engage in negotiations with a future Palestinian unity government that had the backing of Hamas.

In a firm response to Israel’s opposition to the reunification of Hamas and Fatah to form a unity government, Palestinian factions have brushed off Israeli threats, saying such a hostile stance would not affect the nation’s resolve to pursue its goals.

PressTV-Palestinians to preserve unity despite Israeli opposition

Palestinian factions dismiss Tel Aviv’s hostile stance against their reconciliation efforts, with the PA vowing to continue unity talks with rival Hamas.

Millett, the other guest on the panel, claimed that there could “never be peace” until Hamas is disarmed or destroyed because Hamas’ objective is “to wipe Israel off the map.”

He said Hamas leaders had to recognize Israel, disarm and recognize all the previous peace agreements signed between Israel and Yasser Arafat, the former head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk