Washington : Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected the call of US president Obama by saying that Israel cannot go back to the country's "indefensible" 1967 borders, after meeting Barak Obama in the White House.
Netanyahu's comments came after Obama, the US president, had said the 1967 borders, with
mutually agreed land swaps, should form the basis for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, in a major speech on the Middle East on Thursday.A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmud Abbas, responded to the statements, calling on Obama to further press Israel to accept a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.
In statements made after their talks, both Obama and Netanyahu rejected the involvement of Hamas in peace negotiations, following the recent Palestinian unity deal involving the group and Abbas' Fatah faction.
Netanyahu said that Abbas would have to choose between "peace with Israel and his pact with Hamas".
He also called Hamas the "Palestinian version of al-Qaeda".
But Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesperson, responded telling Al Jazeera: "Hamas is not a terrorist organisation."
"We've spent 20 years in negotiations. It is enough. It is enough for the Palestinians... Hamas is fighting for our people, for our homeland, for our liberation, for our dignity, for our independence."
He also said that while a successful peace process remained to be seen: "We cannot give Israel the carte blanch that they have to enjoy the occupation... and to say we have to stop the resistance against the occupation."
