SIDON, Lebanon: A senior Hamas official dismissed Friday Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ decision to seek U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state as “a political jump in the air” designed to scupper an inter-Palestinian reconciliation.

Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, spoke to journalists after touring the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh outside Sidon. After praying at Khaled bin al-Walid Mosque in the camp, he delivered the Friday sermon and later met with parents of Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire at the border village of Maroun al-Ras on May 15.

Abbas’ step is “a meaningless political jump in the air. It is [designed] to torpedo the program to implement reconciliation,” Zahar said. He urged Abbas to return to the agreement reached by Hamas and its rival, the moderate Fatah movement, in Cairo a few weeks before Abbas went to the U.N. to press the Palestinian statehood bid.

Defying U.S. and Israeli opposition, Abbas last month officially submitted a request to the U.N. for recognition of Palestine as a full member state. Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas said that “the time has come for Palestinian independence.”

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Oct-08/150777-hamas-official-dismisses-abbas-un-bid-as-jump-in-the-air.ashx#ixzz1aB6bBWqf
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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