Hamas: Palestinian, Israeli talks 'reproducing failure'

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zahri said on Monday that Palestinians envoys meeting their Israeli counterparts this week were "reproducing a failed policy." Hamas calls on the Palestinian Authority to boycott the meeting, set for Tuesday in the Jordanian capital, Abu Zahri said. The only beneficiary of the summit will be the Israeli occupation, he added, saying that Israel will exploit the meeting to avoid its own internal crises and improve its reputation in the face of the Arab Spring and growing opposition to Israel around the world. Earlier, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said the meeting was a "grave political mistake which will encourage occupation to go ahead with its aggressiveness against the Palestinian people and their properties." 'Not a resumption of negotiations' PLO official Saeb Erekat is set to meet Israel's Yitzhak Molcho on Tuesday in Amman, with representative of the international Quartet -- the US, European Union, UN and Russia -- also attending. PLO leader Wasl Abu Yossef insisted Sunday: "This is not a resumption of negotiations." Negotiations have been stalled since September 2010 when Israel refused to renew a partial freeze on Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank as demanded by the Palestinians, who want to found a state there as well as in East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Both sides downplayed this week's meeting, but the Quartet negotiators, led by former British premier Tony Blair, are pressing for results after they sought to relaunch talks when President Abbas submitted Palestine's bid for full membership of the negotiations on Sep. 23. The framework proposed by the Quartet set out a return to direct talks within a month, and "comprehensive proposals ... on territory and security," by late January 2012. No recognition Gaza rulers Hamas have long shied from recognizing Israel, or endorsing talks with Israel, in contrast to the Fatah movement which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. However the signing of a reconciliation accord between the rival factions in May 2011, aiming to end the administrative division and establish a common national strategy, has thrown this distinction into confusion. While some Hamas officials have suggested they might recognize a Palestinian state "on any part of Palestine," implying indirect recognition of the Israeli borders, and said they will join the legal representative of the Palestinians in negotiations, the PLO, the party's official standpoint against recognition has not changed.