Bassam al-Salhi Secretary-General of the PPP: Israel weakens Abbas through its Settlements Policy

Tuesday March 18, 2008 16:23 by Manar Jibrin - IMEMC News

Bassam al-Salhi discusses PPP vision for the near future and criticizes all involved parties for failing to work for a genuine peace

In an interview with Bassam al-Salhi, Secretary General of Palestine People's Party on Tuesday, he said that during the last meeting of the party, three issues were discussed. Among them was the political report that was presented by the party's central committee focusing on the party's vision in the current political situation and amidst the obstructed peace negotiations with Israel. This vision includes the party's declaration of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital by the end of this year.

Al-Salhi justified this as cutting “the way over the obstruction of the political process and our rejection to the submitted for a temporary state." He added that "we are working on Arab and international recognition and international protection in the Palestinian territories. [Also, we] are struggling to achieve an end to occupation that focuses on the construction of unified movement for the popular resistance without excluding resistance and all of its forms according to the Palestinian reconciliation document."

He indicated that Israel is applying a systematic and regulated process aiming at destroying the bases of a Palestinian independent state. As such, the People's Party is working to protect the option of two-state solution based on stopping the current negotiations and its mechanisms. In addition the party had called for suspending the negotiations due to ongoing Israeli settlement building and attacks. He asserted that "we [the party] see the necessity to returning the Palestinian cause file to the UN Security Council and not only to the Middle East peace Quartette.”

Al Salhi also stated that there a tendency towards having an expanded front for all of the Palestinian leftist parties. Concerning any initiatives to bridge the gap between the Palestinians in order to end their dividing state, al Salhi said that "the parties [Fatah and Hamas] are not interested to end this state of divisiveness since they are qualified to end it." He further stated that “we realize that both Israel and the United States had played a major role in the failure of the Palestinian experience and the national unit and in dealing seriously with the outcome of the Palestinian legislative elections that was held in 2006. Both the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas movement are having their own interests that they both do not want to reach any solutions."

He added that "we support holding talks whether directly or indirectly to reach real results that to reinforce the democratic experience. We [and] some international sides are working to give the Yamani initiative a chance to succeed.”

Regarding the Palestinian future situation, al Salhi said that "both the US and Israel are not serious and not interested in achieving real progress in the political process and are working to destroy and to weaken the political peace track. They directly or indirectly are working always to weaken the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas through Israel's acts on land and settlements."

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