Hamas presents Palestinian cabinet to Abbas

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas presented its cabinet to Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday after the Islamic militant
group failed to persuade any rival factions to join a
government Israel and the United States have pledged to shun.

Hamas’s plan to appoint party loyalists to top ministerial
posts, in the absence of coalition partners, was an early
signal of the success of Israeli and U.S. efforts to isolate
the Palestinian election victor sworn to Israel’s destruction.

Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh gave the Hamas
cabinet list to Abbas in Gaza as reporters looked on.

Officials from Abbas’s Fatah faction said he would not try
to block parliamentary approval of the government but would
issue a letter detailing his reservations about its policies.

Moderate parties had come under U.S. pressure to shun an
administration led by Hamas, which has rejected demands that it
recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace
accords — conditions for continued Western aid.

Hamas, which eclipsed the long-dominant Fatah faction in
the January 25 poll, completed its cabinet just over a week
before Israel’s own general election on March 28.

Abbas said before meeting Haniyeh that parliament would
convene soon for a vote of confidence in the new government.

“I think the president will give them a chance,” said
senior Palestinian negotiator and Abbas confidant Saeb Erekat.

But Erekat said Abbas, an advocate of a negotiated
settlement with Israel, could exercise his constitutional right
to fire the prime minister in the event of a crisis, such as a
freezing of international aid.

In talks with Hamas before the Abbas-Haniyeh meeting, the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said it had
turned down an offer to join the government, becoming the last
faction to give a final “no.”

Jamil al-Majdalawi, a PFLP leader, told Reuters that
Hamas’s political platform did not include “a fundamental point
for us

— that the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) is the
sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

At U.S.-hosted talks near Tel Aviv on Sunday, Israel and
the Palestinians decided on arrangements for basic foodstuffs
to enter Gaza to ward off a humanitarian crisis in the
territory.

Richard Jones, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said after
the session at his residence that food and other essential
goods would be sent from Egypt to Gaza through Israel’s
southern Kerem Shalom crossing on Monday.

Palestinians in Gaza have reported shortages of bread and
other staples as a result of Israel’s off-and-on closure of the
Karni terminal that handles most goods moving between the Gaza
Strip and the Jewish state.

Israel, which pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza
Strip last year, has cited security concerns for shutting
Karni. It has kept the crossing closed since March 13 and said
it has no immediate plans to reopen it.

Israeli officials had proposed a limited transfer of goods
at Kerem Shalom, inside Israel at the corner of the border with
Gaza and Egypt. Palestinians had said Kerem Shalom was too
small to meet the needs of 1.4 million Gazans.

Signaling the Palestinians still wanted Karni to serve as
the main passage for commercial goods, Erekat said a separate
U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian meeting would also be held “to put
into effect security arrangements for the entry of goods at
Karni.”

Israel has said it would not deal with a Hamas government
but would not restrict humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, Allyn
Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem and Wafa Amr in Haifa)