Friday, September 25, 2009

Hamas, Fatah slam hardline Netanyahu's speech

Hamas says Israel carrying out Holocaust against Palestinians, PA delegate walks out on Netanyahu speech.


GAZA CITY - Hamas on Thursday accused Israel of carrying out a Holocaust against Palestinians, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech at the UN General Assembly.

"Israel is the one carrying out a Holocaust against the Palestinians," Sami Abu Zahri, a spokesman for the democratically elected Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Although Israel was created by a UN resolution over 60 years ago, it is known for its defiance of the international community, especially when concerning UN resolutions on it's illegal occupation of Arab land.

The hardliner used his address to the annual meetings of heads of state and government to blast the United Nations for its report criticizing Israel for using excessive force in its assault on the Gaza Strip eight months ago.

He unleashed a tirade against the findings of the UN probe into the Gaza assault, and warned it could affect how Israel reacts in the future towards the Palestinians.

He linked Israel's willingness to make future concessions to the Palestinians, to how other nations react to the report.

While the UN investigation found that both Israel and Palestinian groups had committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, it reserved some of its harshest language for the actions taken by Israel against the civilian population in the densely-populated Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu also addressed Israel's conflict with the Palestinians, saying again that he would accept a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel, in reference to what is seen by critics as a 'non-State'.

However, he offered no olive branches to the Palestinians and did not refer to calls by the Palestinians and the US to freeze illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed Palestinian East Jerusalem.

A lone Palestinian delegate walked out as Netanyahu defended Israel's December-January assault on the Gaza Strip that killed 1,400 mainly civilian Palestinians.

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