Hamas, Fatah, agree on cabinet

Israel and the quartet seem to put the cart before the horse. Rather than negotiating issues they want settled, they put them as preconditions. Israel still has not even returned all the taxes collected for Palestine and aid is still being held back until the govt. recognises Israel and renounces violence. So will Israel renounce violence? I forgot that is just self defence.


Palestinian president accepts unity cabinet list
Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:48 AM EDT



By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday accepted a ministerial list proposed by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, paving the way for a unity government that could end bloody factional violence.

Haniyeh told reporters the government list would be submitted to parliament for a confidence vote on Saturday.

He did not give details of the government's program but said a priority would be to "end the security anarchy" that has claimed more than 90 Palestinian lives since December.

Israel said it would boycott the government, just as it had shunned its Hamas-run predecessor, until it recognizes the Jewish state, renounces violence and accepts past peace deals, as demanded by the Quartet of Middle East mediators.

"We hope that the international community will stand steadfast behind its own principles and refuse to give legitimacy or recognition to this extreme government," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

An Israeli political source said Israel would maintain direct contact with Abbas to "ensure humanitarian coordination and strengthen moderate elements in the Palestinian Authority."

Palestinians hope the deal will end fighting between Abbas's secular Fatah group and Islamist Hamas, and ease a crippling Western aid embargo of the Palestinian Authority.

Washington has told the Palestinians that the embargo will remain until the Quartet's conditions are met, but there were signs that some European countries want to ease it.

QUEST FOR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

Haniyeh said the new government enjoyed Arab support, while the European Union had showed "understanding."

"No doubt that the American administration and Israel have a different position but as Palestinians we will do what is required to reinforce national unity, end tensions and lift the siege," he said.

France said the new government heralded a "new page" in relations with the international community, but linked future cooperation to Palestinian efforts to halt violence against Israel and secure the release of a captured Israeli soldier.

In a letter to his new counterpart Ziad Abu Amr, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said that if Corporal Gilad Shalit were freed, it would "create more favorable conditions for reestablishing cooperative relations with the international community and relaunching a dynamic for peace."

Diplomats in Brussels said the EU might funnel funds through the designated finance minister, Salam Fayyad, a Western-backed reformer, as a first step toward restoring direct assistance.

Another possibility being studied is broadening an existing mechanism for delivering purely humanitarian relief to include direct payments to the Palestinian government, they said.

Fayyad, who was finance minister from 2002-2005 when Fatah controlled the government, initiated financial reforms and fought corruption.

Many ordinary Palestinians are looking to the unity cabinet to provide a respite from factional bloodshed.

"We hope that the new government will put an end to this shameful fighting and start paying attention to our bigger goal, the liberation of our land," said Mohammad Salah, 36, a farmer in the town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

Ali al-Ayyan, a taxi driver, said: "It's great. But the question is how long such a pact can hold," he said.

Abbas and Haniyeh clinched the cabinet deal on Wednesday when they picked an academic with no security experience for the hotly-contested post of interior minister.

Hani al-Qawasmi, 49, told Reuters on Thursday his priority was to end factional fighting.

The interior minister is supposed to oversee major security services, but in practice they answer either to Fatah or Hamas and have frequently clashed on the streets of Gaza.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi