Palestinian envoy pessimistic about peace talks with Israel

Palestinian Ambassador to Tehran Salah al-Zawawi voiced pessimism about the revival of the so-called “peace talks” between Israel and Palestinian groups. "My experience in the past 20 years shows that we shouldn’t be optimistic about the current negotiations, although I don’t have the information that the Palestinian leaders have," Zawawi said in a meeting in Tehran on Saturday. In relevant remarks on Wednesday, Tehran's Ambassador to Damascus Mohammad Reza Rao'uf Sheibani underlined that revival of the so-called “peace talks” between Israel and Palestinian groups is doomed to failure, and said such negotiations will never restore the rights of the Palestinian nation. “Surveying the contemporary history, we see that talks have never led to the liberation of the Palestinian lands; therefore, it is necessary to staunchly support the resistance front and the Palestinian people in order to help them reclaim their legitimate rights,” Rao'uf Sheibani said. Earlier this month, US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that he finally “convinced Israeli and Palestinian officials to return to the negotiating table.” This is while the prospects for peace appear just as unlikely as before. Early in May, Head of the Political Bureau of the Palestinian Hamas movement Khalid Mashaal underlined that Washington's efforts to restore peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are doomed to fail since US Secretary of State John Kerry has not presented any solution to the ongoing crisis. "The US secretary of state has not presented any solution to settle the conflicts between the Palestinians and the Zionist regime and therefore the country's efforts are doomed to fail similar to the past," Mashaal said. He complained that John Kerry has not adopted a serious approach to settle the Palestinian issue fairly because it has never pressured Israel as the occupier, and has just pressured the Arab sides and the Palestinian authority and presented some useless projects. The US secretary of state has claimed to be seeking to revive direct peace talks that broke down in 2010 over the issue of Jewish settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. He hailed the Arab League's revised Middle-East peace initiative as "a very big step forward". But Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh at the time rejected the plan, saying outsiders could not decide the fate of the Palestinians. In the meetings held in early May in Washington, Arab states appeared to soften their 2002 peace plan, acknowledging that Israelis and Palestinians may have to swap land in any eventual peace deal. Addressing hundreds of worshippers in a Gaza mosque, Haniyeh said it was a concession that other Arabs were not authorized to make. "The so-called new Arab initiative is rejected by our people, by our nation and no one can accept it," Haniyeh said. "The initiative contains numerous dangers to our people in the occupied land of 1967, 1948 and to our people in exile." "To those who speak of land swaps we say: Palestine is not a property, it is not for sale, not for a swap and cannot be traded," Haniyeh said. Haniyeh said the Palestinian Authority, headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, was to blame for inspiring the softer Arab position because it accepted the need for land swaps with Israel.