PALESTINIAN FACTIONS DECRY ‘SUMMIT OF SHAME’ IN NEGEV

Israel is taking advantage of the Arabs’ fear of Iran to divert attention from its actions on the ground and “liquidate” the Palestinian issue, the Palestinian Authority said Sunday in an implicit reference to the Negev Summit.

The PA and other Palestinian groups also expressed concern over the apparent emergence of an Arab-Israeli military alliance in the Middle East.

But while the PA refrained from criticizing the four Arab countries participating in the summit – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt – several Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, strongly condemned the gathering, dubbing it a “summit of shame.”

Israel is “pretending that it’s focusing in its foreign policy on the Iranian nuclear file and the repercussions of the agreement that is being crystalized [between Iran and the US and other Western powers],” the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “But Israel’s real focus is the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and an attempt to remove it from the world’s attention.”

According to the ministry, Israel, with the full backing of the US, is “taking advantage of Arab anxiety and fear to form a new security alliance that bypasses the Palestinian cause. This Israeli move aims to cover up what it is doing on the ground, including the expansion of settlements and the Judaization of Jerusalem. This is the main project that the Israeli government is working to implement as part of its attempts to rearrange the priorities in the region away from the Palestinian issue.”

 HAMAS SECURITY forces take part in a graduation ceremony in Gaza City last month. MESA continues its silence in the face of conduct that provides fertile ground for terrorist organizations, such as Hamas. (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)

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HAMAS SECURITY forces take part in a graduation ceremony in Gaza City last month. MESA continues its silence in the face of conduct that provides fertile ground for terrorist organizations, such as Hamas. (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)

In the Gaza Strip, representatives of the National and Islamic Forces, an alliance of several radical groups, condemned the summit as a “stab to the Palestinian people and their cause.”