The ruling Hamas party in Gaza described yesterday the Olmert-Abbas meeting in Jerusalem as 'clumsy'. Spokesman of Hamas, Fawzi Brhoum said in a statement, faxed to press, that the latest meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, would inject legitimacy to underway Israeli settlement activities on occupied Palestinian lands. " the meeting constituted a life-saving boat to Olmert in the shadow of Olmert's repeated corruption charges. Also, such a meeting happens to take place after an Israeli crime or a crisis", read the statement. Barhoum asserted that the Abbas-Olmert talks over the past several months only served one purpose; reinforcing the role of the Palestinian Authority as a guard of the Israeli occupation's borders at the expense of the Palestinian people's right to fight the Israeli occupation. Yesterday, President Abbas met with PM Olmert at the latter's residence in west Jerusalem. Olmert reiterated Israel's drive to carry on more settlement activities on the Palestinian territories. Washington, which brokers peace talks between the two sides, expressed yesterday concern over an Israeli plan to build more than 800 new housing units in the occupied east Jerusalem. Settlement activities represent a stumbling bloc in the path of peace negotiations, which Washington wants to conclude by end of this year, with the declaration of a two-state solution.
