OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, March 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A senior Palestinian minister on Tuesday, March 25, slammed an Israeli peace overture extended by Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to the emerging Palestinian leadership headed by moderate prime minister Mahmud Abbas as a mere "Propaganda".

"The statement by Shalom is part of the propaganda campaign that makes out Israel is interested in real peace," Local Government Minister Saeb Erakat said in an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"If Israel is interested in real peace it should stop its military campaign, its settlement activities, its siege and closure of the Palestinian territory," he asserted.

Shalom told parliament on Monday, March 24, he hoped the new government being formed by Abbas could open the way to renewed negotiations.

"Israel wants peace and hopes to find real partners for negotiations in this sense among the new Palestinian leadership," Shalom said.

Shalom's words were a further boost to the newly appointed Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, who has called for an end to attacks against Israeli targets.

"We consider the nomination of Abu Mazen as a positive step, but it remains to be seen to what extent he can act and if (Palestinian President Yasser)Arafat will permit him to fight….Hamas and Islamic Jihad," claimed Shalom.

"If the Palestinian Authority agrees to progress on the path of peace, it must renounce terrorism, and we believe it is possible," he alleged.

"Israel gives its agreement to the plan by U.S. President George W. Bush" to establish an independent Palestinian state by 2005, he said.

Erakat said accepting Bush's vision for a Palestinian state was different to accepting the "roadmap" to peace based on it by the diplomatic quartet made up of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Britain.

Israel has proposed major changes to the roadmap and expressed serious concern that any progress toward Palestinian statehood should be firmly conditioned on Palestinian reforms.

Erakat said that while delays and changes were underway, Israel was "establishing the facts" on the ground by building its security fence along the border with the West Bank largely inside Palestinian territory and expanding Jewish settlements.

Abbas was appointed prime minister on March 19 and has up to five weeks to form a new government.

Israel Abducts 19 Palestinians

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces abducted 19 Palestinian fighters in the West Bank late on Monday, an Israeli military spokesman said.

Two members of Fatah movement were also abducted in Ramallah in a car with a European Union registration number, he added.

Palestinian security sources said Nidal Nagnaguieh, a local leader of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Fatah, was abducted in a house in the Jenin refugee camp.

Israeli public radio claimed another pair, abducted in the north of the territory, were preparing a bombing attack against Israeli targets.

Another 33 Palestinians were abducted in the West Bank overnight Sunday, March 23, the spokesman said.