The Islamic militant group Hamas Friday urged the Palestinian Authority of Yasser Arafat not to accept proposals for a peace deal with Israel forwarded by US President Bill Clinton.
"Our strategy is the path of resistance, and all attempts to give life to the failed negotiating process and to save the Zionist killer (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Barak from his political crisis through negotiations in Washington do not serve our Palestinian goals," a Hamas statement said.
"They will not stop the blessed Intifada (uprising).
"We ask the Palestinian Authority to stop all negotiations with the occupier. The Palestinian people have said more than once they will not accept it," Hamas added, stressing that they would not be bound by any peace agreement that did not give them full control over Jerusalem and allow millions of Palestinian refugees to return to what is now Israel.
Clinton has proposed a compromise formula for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that has been accepted by Barak, but that Arafat has said needs clarifications.
Israeli and Palestinian media reports have said it calls for the return of some 95 percent of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, who would also gain control over Arab east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians would also control east Jerusalem's holy sites, except for the Western Wall, the most sacred shrine for Jews.
In exchange for Israeli flexibility over east Jerusalem, which the Jewish state captured and annexed in 1967, Palestinians would have to accept Israel's refusal to allow some 3.7 million refugees to return to their homes in Israel -- GAZA CITY (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
