GAZA, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic Hamas movement on Saturday snubbed U.S. and Arab efforts to resume peace talks between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters that the bids to revive the stalled peace process "aim at saving the Arab regimes from their weakness and rescuing the U.S. administration's reputation which is biased towards the Israeli occupation."
"For Hamas, the only beneficiary of the resumption of the negotiations is Israel which will use it as a cover to continue building settlements and making Jerusalem Jewish," Abu Zuhri added.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States is working with Israeli and Palestinian authorities, as well as Arab states to relaunch the talks "as soon as possible and without preconditions."
But on Saturday, the PNA rejected Clinton's call for restarting immediate talks with Israel to discuss the borders of a future Palestinian state.
Clinton's call "is unacceptable since it doesn't include a stop of (Jewish) settlement and a timetable for the negotiations," Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, told Xinhua.
"How should we negotiate on the Palestinian state's boundaries while the Israeli bulldozers and settlements eat up the land that we want to build our state on?" Erekat asked.
"The settlement expansions must stop to give a chance for the negotiations to succeed," he said.
The Palestinians insist the borders of their future statehood encompass all of the land Israel occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.
They want East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized by the international community, as capital of their future state, while Israel deems Jerusalem as its indivisible capital.
The Palestinians have vowed not to return to the negotiating table unless Israel totally freezes construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank as well as in East Jerusalem.
Special Report: Palestine-Israel Conflicts
