Palestine's
Shaath Calls
Hamas
Obstructive,
Says Fear of
ICC Shows Bad
Intent
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 21
-- As
Palestine's Nabil
Shaath
says Mahmud
Abbas will
ask the
Security
Council for
full UN
membership
before "going
to the General
Assembly,"
Inner
City Press
asked him
about
Palestine
joining the
International
Criminal
Court, and
about the
position of
Hamas on what
his
delegation is
trying at the
UN.
Shaath
said the
first
question,
which he said
"some
Europeans"
have been
raising,
implies that
Israel intends
to commit
crimes. He
said
Palestine
would not file
complaints to
"harass"
Israel,
because it
would hurt
what he called
the
credibility,
of Abbas and
the PLO.
"I
am not an
advocate for
Hamas," he
said. But he
said that in
Cairo many
good
agreements
were reached
with Hamas,
but that no
government
could
be formed, as
he said was
the case in
Lebanon and
Iraq too. He
said
Hamas has two
reasons to
oppose the UN
push: Hamas
says it wasn't
consulted with
sufficiently,
and they think
the UN moves
are "in
the air."
Shaath
called this
"obstructive"
and negative.
He then spoke
about Gazans,
if
they go to the
West Bank,
being called
"illicit
infiltrators"
and being sent
back to Gaza,
as if the two
were like
"Zimbabwe
in the south
and Iceland in
the north."
Returning
to Hamas,
he
acknowledged
they are not
represented in
the
Palestinian
delegation to
the UN,
calling this a
political
question. "We
have not yet
regained our
unity," he
said.
He
was asked
which
nine countries
on the
Security
Council have
recognized
Palestine, and
would
presumably
vote for
Palestine's
application
for UN
membership.
He answered:
Russia, China,
India,
Lebanon, South
Africa,
Brazil,
Bosnia, Gabon
and, after a
pause,
Nigeria.
Shaath, 2d
from right, at
UN in 1974.
Plus ca change
Nine
positive votes
would then
require a
veto. Shaath
said that Ban
Ki-moon has
assured
there will be
no "political"
delays in
transmitting
Palestine's
requests, only
"procedural"
ones. Watch
this
site.
, 
in