Hamas Dismisses U.S. Offer on ‘Deal of Century’: Official

Date: 17 October 2020 - 22:02

News ID: ۸۳۹۰۶

GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – Palestinian Hamas movement has turned down an offer by the United States to coax the resistance movement into negotiations over President Donald Trump’s highly controversial "deal of the century” on the decades-old Zionist-Palestinian conflict, a senior official with the movement says.
"Hamas refused to negotiate with the U.S. government over the deal of the century because Washington was trying to exploit the talks in order to threaten the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leadership by provoking divisions among Palestinian factions,” Deputy head of Hamas political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, said on Saturday.
The U.S.-proposed deal, which is completely in favor of the Zionist regime, enshrines al-Quds as "Israel’s undivided capital” and allows the regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the strategic Jordan Valley. The plan also denies the right of return to Palestinian refugees into their homeland, among other controversial terms.
All Palestinian groups have unanimously rejected the so-called deal of century that serves the occupying regime’s interests in the decades-old conflict while creating a Palestinian state with limited control over its own security and borders.
"National participation is the only response that can be given to the conspiracy of the deal of the century and [bids aimed at] elimination of the Palestinian cause,” Arouri noted.
"It is the occupying Israeli regime that has drawn up the roadmap for the elimination of the Palestinian cause, and the scheme is being implemented by the U.S. government and its allies in the region,” Arouri said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian official denounced the normalization agreements signed by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to establish full diplomatic ties with the Zionist regime.
Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed U.S.-brokered normalization deals with the Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani during an official ceremony hosted by President Donald Trump at the White House on September 15.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud also announced on Thursday that his country believes in "eventual normalization” of ties with the regime, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy reported.
In a virtual meeting with the prince, he conveyed: "I believe that the focus now needs to be on getting the Palestinians and the Israelis back to the negotiating table. In the end, the only thing that can deliver a lasting peace and lasting stability is an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”
Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with East al-Quds as its capital, view the deals as betrayal of their cause.