Abbas to ask Hamas to form Palestinian government

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Abbas will ask Hamas on
Tuesday to form a new Palestinian government and to pursue his
peace agenda, but the Islamist militant group said talks with
the Jewish state would be a waste of time.

Facing a looming financial crisis after Israel halted
monthly tax payments to an already cash-strapped Palestinian
Authority, Hamas’s top political leader, Khaled Meshaal, said
Iran would play an increasing role in Palestinian affairs.

U.S. and Israeli officials are concerned Tehran will try to
exert control over a Hamas-led government, making the
resumption of peace talks even more unlikely.

“Talking to Israel is a waste of time as long as there is
no talk about withdrawing from Palestine,” Meshaal said in
Tehran ahead of one-on-one talks in Gaza between Abbas and
Hamas’s prime minister-designate, Ismail Haniyeh.

Israel has likewise vowed to boycott Hamas, whose charter
calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, until the
militant group renounces violence, accepts past peace deals and
recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

Hamas showed no sign of backing down. “Resistance will
continue as long as the occupation and aggression continues,”
Meshaal said at Tehran University. “There is no recognition of
Israel, no matter what the cost is.”

Abbas, whose long-dominant Fatah faction was crushed by
Hamas in a January 25 parliamentary election, will meet Haniyeh
at 6 p.m. to present him with a formal letter authorizing him
to form a government.

Though he acknowledged chances were slim, Israeli interim
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a television interview, said
there was still hope for peace with the Palestinians.

“Despite the slimmer chance, hope has not ceased,” Olmert
told Israel’s Channel 1 television. “I am responsible for …
the struggle against Hamas and also protecting the hope and
chance of reaching an agreement.”

Over Palestinian objections, Olmert has threatened to take
unilateral steps to set the Jewish state’s borders if
peacemaking remains frozen. Last year’s Gaza pullout was
popular with Israelis and Olmert faces a general election on
March 28.

The Israeli army evacuated three small settlement outposts
in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, but many others have yet
to be removed as called for in the U.S.-backed “road map” to
peace.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Egypt
on Tuesday before traveling to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, where she will lobby states to deny aid to a
Hamas-led Palestinian government.

Like Israel, the United States has barred contacts with
Hamas. Meshaal said he would “welcome” talks with Washington.
“But such negotiations should be on equal basis,” he said.

AUTHORISATION LETTER

In his letter to Haniyeh, Abbas was expected to spell out
guidelines for a future Hamas administration, including a
commitment from the militant group to abide by past interim
peace accords with Israel, an aide to the president said.

Palestinian political analysts predicted a constitutional
crisis if Hamas continued to reject Abbas’s peace agenda.

Hamas has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel
since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000 but has largely
abided by a ceasefire forged a year ago.

Once Abbas gives the nod to Haniyeh, a Hamas leader viewed
by many Palestinians as a pragmatist, the 43-year-old Gazan
will have up to five weeks to form an administration.

Hamas has responded to U.S. and European threats to freeze
all but humanitarian aid by asking Iran and others for support.

“With respect to the challenges that we have ahead of us,
Iran’s role in the future of Palestine should continue and
increase,” Meshaal said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on
Islamic countries to help fund a Hamas-led government. Russia
also said on Monday it was “ready in principle” to offer
emergency aid to the Palestinians.

“If the West does not provide economic aid to Palestine, it
can get the support from the Arab and Islamic countries,”
Meshaal said, dismissing Western aid as “redundant to us.”

The United States and Israel have long accused Iran of
funding Hamas’s campaign against Israel. But officials said
they doubted Iran, branded as part of an “axis of evil” by
Washington, would be able to sustain the Palestinian Authority.

(Additional reporting by Adam Entous and Jonathan Saul in
Jerusalem; Parisa Hafezi in Tehran)