Palestine’s Abbas warns of dissolving administration

JERUSALEM- Agence France-Presse

Palestinian President Abbas says he is waiting for Jan 22 elections. AA photo

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that he would disband his Palestinian Authority if there was no Israeli movement toward renewing peace talks after the elections next month, threatening Israel with leaving the ground to Hamas in Palestine.

Abbas, in an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz, said that if such a situation arose he would hand full responsibility for the occupied West Bank to the Israeli government.

 “If there is no progress even after the election I will take the phone and call [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Abbas said. “I’ll tell him... Sit in the chair here instead of me, take the keys, and you will be responsible for the Palestinian Authority.” “Once the new government in Israel is in place, Netanyahu will have to decide - yes or no,” Abbas said in the interview published on the paper’s website late Dec. 27.

Talks between the two sides have been on hold since September 2010, with the Palestinians insisting on a settlement freeze before returning to the negotiating table and the Israelis insisting on no preconditions. Following last month’s historic United Nations vote giving the Palestinians upgraded status in the world body, Israel announced a new spate of settlement building in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Abbas told the interview that since then Israel had also reduced security coordination with Palestinian forces in the West Bank.

He said he would be willing to renew negotiations with Netanyahu after the election but would demand that Israel freeze further settlement construction while they are being held, renew the transfer of Palestinian tax revenues that Israel has been withholding and release some 120 long-term Palestinian prisoners.

“These are not preconditions, these are commitments Israel already took upon itself in the past,” he said.