U.S. ‘Disappointed’ by Palestinian Unity Deal
The United States said on Wednesday it was disappointed by a unity pact agreed between the Gaza-based Islamist group Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and said it could seriously complicate peace efforts.
“The timing was troubling and we were certainly disappointed in the announcement,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a regular news briefing.
“This could seriously complicate our efforts. Not just our efforts but the efforts of the parties to extend their negotiations.”
Psaki said U.S. officials had expressed their concerns to the Palestinians.
“It’s hard to see how Israel can be expected to negotiate with a government that does not believe in its right to exist,” she said.
The Palestinian move, coming after a long line of failed efforts to reconcile after seven years of internal bickering, envisions a unity government within five weeks and national elections six months later.
Israel said after the announcement that Abbas had chosen Hamas over peace, and canceled a session of U.S.-brokered talks with the Palestinians that had been scheduled for Wednesday night in Jerusalem.
Israeli Channel 2 TV said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would convene an emergency session of his security cabinet on Thursday to discuss his response.
Along with the United States and the European Union, Israel views Hamas as a terrorist organization, and says Abbas’ efforts to unify with the group show he is not serious about extending the troubled negotiations.
The talks, aimed at ending its decades-old conflict with the Palestinians and establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, are scheduled to end on April 29.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
