Abbas refuses a "Jewish state" as rivals meet

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday refused to accept Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as rival Palestinian delegations from Fatah and Hamas met in Cairo in a last bid to end feud.

"A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean?" Abbas asked in a speech in the West Bank's political capital of Ramallah. "You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly."

Abbas said the topic was "extensively discussed" and rejected by the Palestinians during a November 2007 international conference in Annapolis, near Washington, during which the two sides re-launched peace negotiations.

Netanyahu demanded the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of an eventual peace deal.

Such a move would amount to an effective renunciation of the right of return of refugees from the1948 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel was created, a cherished principle of the Palestinians.

Abbas also criticized Israel's firebrand Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said the new cabinet was not bound by the previous government's decision taken at Annapolis to re-launch peace talks with the Palestinians.

A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Respecting signed deals

On the latest round of Palestinian reconciliation talks which opened on Monday in Cairo, Abbas said if the parties managed to form a unity government that cabinet would have to abide by past Israeli-Palestinian accords.

"It is the government and its members that should respect such deals and not movements," Abbas said.

He was referring to the Hamas movement ruling Gaza whose refusal to recognize past deals, to renounce violence and to recognize Israel has prompted the West to blacklist the Islamist group as a terror outfit.

Should the Palestinians form a unity government, the cabinet's top priority will be reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military carried out a devastating 22-day offensive in December-January.

International donors have pledged $4.5 billion to the Palestinians, much of it for the rebuilding the impoverished Gaza enclave where more than 1,330 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive.

But the aid was promised to the Abbas government not to Hamas and no reconstruction aid has been allowed into the territory.

Another priority will be preparing for combined presidential and parliamentary elections "before Jan. 24, 2010," the date when the mandate of the current legislature dominated by Hamas expires, Abbas said.

Rivals meet in Cairo

Fatah and Hamas have been at odds since June 2007 when the Islamists booted their rivals from the Gaza Strip after a week of deadly fighting.

The Cairo meetings between delegations of Fatah and Hamas -- the fourth round since March -- are expected to last at least three days, senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath told AFP.

Nabil Amr, the Palestinian ambassador to Cairo, said he hoped this round "would be the last before an agreement (is reached), because a time-limit must be set."

On Sunday, a member of the PLO warned that this would be the last attempt at inter-Palestinian reconciliation if talks failed and Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said this round of talks would be "the most difficult."

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed doubt that the rival Palestinian factions would clinch a deal on a unity government.

Clinton said no aid would flow to Hamas "or any entity controlled by Hamas" and again insisted that Washington would not deal with any Palestinian government that failed to recognize Israel.

It is the government and its members that should respect such deals and not movements

Abbas