Hamas: If Shalit deal fails, 'it will be Netanyahu's fault'

Sun, 10 Jan 2010

Cairo - If a deal to release the hostage Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit fails, "it will be Netanyahu's fault," leading Hamas politician Moussa Abu Marzouq said Sunday. Hamas captured Shalit near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip in 2006, and a deal to see him freed in return for the release of several hundred Palestinian prisoners by Israel has been brewing for months.

Hamas' exiled deputy political leader told the daily al-Hayat that he expected a German mediator to convey Israel's "final decision" on a deal within two days.

"If the deal fails, It will be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fault," Abu Marzouq said.

Abu Marzouq also criticized the German mediator brokering the indirect talks alongside Egyptian intelligence officials for the current impasse in negotiations.

"The mediator did not take some steps he should have taken," Abu Marzouq told the daily.

Abu Marzouq said that both Netanyahu and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had retracted offers they had originally made in the negotiations, but that Netanyahu had done so more often.

The Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharanot on Friday reported that Netanyahu had discussed with Olmert the details of what had scuppered negotiations on a prisoner-swap deal in March 2009.

Abu Marzouq said recent talks had faltered on the release of a few Palestinian militants.

"The number of those Israel refuses to release is not high," he told the daily.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/302926,hamas-if-shalit-deal-fails-it-will-be-netanyahus-fault.html.