Olmert talks tough on Hamas, waters down restrictions

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel settled on Sunday for
watered-down restrictions on the Palestinian Authority in an
apparent nod to U.S. calls to avoid adding to Palestinian
hardship after Hamas’s election victory.

At the same time, interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said
the Palestinian Authority was turning into a “terrorist” body
now that Hamas, an Islamic group dedicated to Israel’s
destruction, was assuming power.

“Israel will not hold contacts with a government that Hamas
is part of,” Olmert said, echoing pledges he has made since the
militant movement crushed the long-dominant Fatah faction in
the January 25 Palestinian parliamentary election.

Olmert’s cabinet, meeting for its weekly session a day
after a Hamas-dominated Palestinian legislature was sworn in,
reaffirmed a decision to halt the transfer to the cash-strapped
authority of tax revenues that Israel collects on its behalf.

“As we announced immediately after the Palestinian
election, upon the end of the interim (Palestinian) government,
Israel will stop forthwith the transfer of funds to the
Palestinian Authority,” Olmert said. Israel had handed over
some $50 million in tax money to the Palestinians every month.

But the cabinet stopped short of adopting a blanket ban
that Israeli defense officials had proposed on the entry of
Palestinian workers to Israel and on Palestinian travel,
through its territory, between Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Spelling out action Israel will take, officials said
security checks will be stepped up at crossing points between
Israel and Gaza and the movement of Hamas members restricted in
West Bank territory under Israel’s control.

Israel will appeal to international donors not to transfer
funds to the Palestinian Authority once Hamas forms a
government, but will allow money in for humanitarian purposes,
the officials added.

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas, called the Israeli measures harmful.

An Israeli government source said: “We did not want to make
it too hard for the Palestinians or take steps now that would
prevent us from taking harsher measures later.

“We also took international pressure into consideration. We
want to maintain international sympathy for Israel’s position.”

U.S. officials had publicly cautioned Israel against edicts
that would make life more difficult for ordinary Palestinians.

In any case, restrictions on Palestinian employment and
travel would have been largely symbolic, since only a few
thousand people would be affected following strict limits
Israel imposed after a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.

PALESTINIAN APPEAL

In fresh violence, Israeli forces shot dead two
Palestinians in Balata refugee camp in the West Bank. Witnesses
said they had been throwing stones at the troops. On the
Israel-Gaza border, a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft
killed two militants. Israeli military sources said they were
planting a bomb.

Commenting on the cabinet measures, Abu Rdainah called on
the United States “not to allow Israel to carry out its
sanctions.” He also voiced confidence the incoming Palestinian
government would toe Abbas’s political line.

In his speech to the new parliament, Abbas appealed to a
future Hamas administration to recognize past peace deals with
Israel and commit itself to pursuing statehood through talks
but stopped short of setting conditions for forming a cabinet.

Hamas swiftly rejected Abbas’s call, but neither the group
nor the president appeared ready for an immediate showdown.

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s choice for prime minister, said
“everything will be on the table” when he and other leaders of
the militant group meet President Mahmoud Abbas later in the
day in Gaza for talks on forming a national unity government.

Haniyeh, 43, is widely viewed by Palestinians as a
pragmatist who has forged good relations with rival factions.

“We want to avoid any sharp debate especially while the
(Israeli) occupation refuses to recognize Palestinian rights
and refuses to recognize the agreements signed with the
(Palestinian) Authority,” Haniyeh told reporters.

Washington and its allies have urged nations to boycott
Hamas, which has masterminded nearly 60 suicide attacks against
Israelis since the uprising began, unless it disarms and
recognises the Jewish state and past peace deals.

But the United States and the European Union do not want to
push the Palestinian Authority to collapse or to seek
alternative funding from states such as Iran.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah and
Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)