Hamas militia off streets after Abbas challenge

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – The Hamas-led Palestinian government
ordered its new militia off Gaza’s streets on Friday in the
wake of clashes with President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement
that stirred fears of civil war.

The move comes a day after Abbas stunned Hamas with an
ultimatum to back a proposal for Palestinian statehood that
implicitly recognizes Israel or face a referendum on the issue.

Abbas gave the government 10 days to back the proposal,
effectively going over the heads of the Islamist militants and
setting the stage for a showdown. Hamas seeks to destroy Israel
and has rejected Abbas’s calls for talks with the Jewish state.

Youssef al-Zahar, a leader of the 3,000-strong Hamas force
in the impoverished Gaza Strip, told Reuters the interior
minister had ordered the pullback.

“We have received orders to withdraw from the streets and
to concentrate in certain locations to be ready to rush to the
scene when needed to confront chaos,” Zahar said.

Government officials said the order was given to reduce
tension with Fatah. Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Prime
Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, had telephoned
Abbas to tell him of the decision.

Clashes between Hamas and Fatah have become more frequent
since the unit was deployed last week. Government officials
have said the new force would not be disbanded, despite calls
from Abbas to do so, but integrated into regular police units.

Abbas and Hamas have been engaged in an increasingly bitter
power struggle since the Islamists took office two months ago
after beating Fatah in January elections.

Raising the stakes, Abbas on Thursday gave Hamas 10 days to
back a plan for a Palestinian state alongside Israel or face
what would amount to a confidence vote in 40 days.

Hamas would not be “blackmailed” into accepting the plan, a
member of the group’s exiled leadership said on Friday.

Mohammad Nazzal did not reject the proposal outright, but
he criticised Abbas for threatening to put it to a referendum.

“We see this referendum as a tool of pressure on Hamas,”
Nazzal told Reuters in Damascus.

Passage of the referendum might offer Hamas an opportunity
to moderate its opposition to Israel and any peace negotiations
without having to formally change its stance.

DEBATE

The proposal calls for a peace settlement if Israel
withdraws from all of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem,
occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.

The plan was drawn up in an Israeli jail by senior
prisoners from factions including Hamas and Fatah.

Israel has not commented but has long rejected pulling back
from all the West Bank. It has said it intends to keep large
Jewish settlement blocs there and also considers Jerusalem its
“eternal and undivided capital.”

Palestinian factions involved in a final day of two days of
national dialogue aimed at easing tensions on Friday debated
Abbas’s ultimatum.

One Hamas lawmaker, Mushir al-Masri, told Reuters
Palestinians everywhere would need to take part in any
referendum, a condition that would undermine efforts to hold
it. Many Palestinians live in refugees camps in the Arab world.

Most polls in recent years have shown strong Palestinian
public support for a state along the 1967 borders. Hamas seeks
to put an Islamic state in place of Israel.

At the heart of the internal conflict is the refusal of
Hamas to accept demands from Abbas and the West to recognize
Israel. That stance has triggered an aid boycott that has
brought the Palestinian Authority to its knees.

The prisoners’ proposal calls for an independent
Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as
its capital. It also seeks a unity government.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah and
Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Damascus)