Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gestures as he speaks during a ceremony marking the 14th anniversary of the death of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, November 11, 2018. (photo credit: MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/REUTERS)
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction is opposed to an American proposal to condemn Hamas at the United Nations General Assembly, Osama Qawassmeh, a spokesman for the group, said on Sunday.
The UN General Assembly is scheduled to vote on Tuesday on a US-drafted resolution that would condemn Hamas for firing rockets at Israel and demand an end to the violence. If adopted, the resolution would be the first of its kind taken by the General Assembly against Hamas. All 28 European Union countries have agreed to support the resolution.
Qawassmeh, who is also a member of the Fatah “Revolutionary Council,” said that Fatah was totally opposed to American and Israeli efforts to brand Hamas with the terrorism label.
“We will fight to defeat this resolution despite Hamas’s effort to undermine the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “We will stand against all hostile efforts to condemn Hamas at the United Nations.”
The Fatah spokesman said that instead of condemning Hamas, the world should instead condemn Israel, “which is the true face of state-sponsored terrorism.”
Fatah, he said, was prepared to lay aside its differences with Hamas in order to reject the resolution against the terrorist group that has been ruling the Gaza Strip since 2007.
Qawassmeh added that his faction will not act like Hamas, which he said, joined Israel and the US in criticizing Abbas after his last speech at the UN General Assembly.
Another senior Fatah official, Abbas Zaki, also vowed to thwart the US resolution, dubbing it “racism par excellence.”
The resolution, he said, was harmful to the Palestinian national project and struggle, and not only to a specific faction. “If Hamas, which is practicing resistance, is labeled a terrorist movement, this would mean that all Palestinians practice terrorism,” Zaki told the Palestine Today website. “Hamas belongs to us and we belong to Hamas. We can’t leave Hamas to fight alone.”
Hamas applauded the Fatah decision and said it was “natural that all Palestinian factions stand against the US move at the UN General Assembly.” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said if the resolution is adopted, it would “criminalize the struggle of the Palestinian people.”
Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk also praised Fatah’s stance and called it a “responsible position that expresses a national interest of a people living under occupation.”
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