Israel signals no ties with Palestinians under Hamas

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said on Tuesday it would
“review all contacts” with the Palestinians if Hamas militants
who won last month’s election head a future government.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made Israel’s strongest
statements yet against Hamas’s surprise victory in the January
25 parliamentary poll, just days before the group was set to
assume control of the legislature when it convenes on Saturday.

Hamas, which won 74 seats in the 132-member parliament,
trouncing Abbas’ long dominant Fatah party, has said it expects
to head the next Palestinian government.

Olmert said that if a Palestinian government is “dominated
by a majority of Hamas people, it ceases to be the authority it
was, becomes something entirely different, something Israel is
not ready to compromise nor is it ready to acquiesce with.”

“The day (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas will appoint
a Hamas representative to head a government, we will review all
contacts” with it, Olmert told American Jewish leaders.

Israel “will not negotiate and will not deal with a
Palestinian Authority that will be dominated wholly or partly
by a terrorist organization,” Olmert added, in a speech.

Olmert, who has assumed power after Ariel Sharon was
incapacitated by a January 4 stroke, expressed satisfaction
with broad U.S.-led rejection of contacts with Hamas unless it
amends its charter that calls to destroy Israel.

The Israeli leader said it would be up to Abbas “to make a
serious choice about priorities,” to make sure his next
government is based on recognizing Israel and its right to
exist as a Jewish state.

“We will not be able to continue the same pattern of
relations if he (Abbas) will choose to surrender” to Hamas’
policies, Olmert said.

EGYPT’S MUBARAK OPTIMISTIC

Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, a key mediator between the
Palestinians and Israel, said in an interview published in
Cairo he would not tell Hamas to recognize Israel but that he
thought eventually the two could make peace.

“The question needs time and effort from them and from you
at the same time,” Mubarak said, in remarks after meeting
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.

“Don’t think that overnight it (Hamas) will say ‘We will
deal with Israel’ and that’s that. That’s impossible. There is
hope and we must not be pessimistic,” Mubarak said.

Abbas intends to insist that Hamas accept his vision of
peacemaking with Israel, an aide said, a demand that could
stall efforts to create a new Palestinian government which
Hamas, as parliament’s largest faction, expects to head.

Under powers granted to him by law, Abbas could refuse to
ratify or cooperate with a new administration if built on Hamas
policies he finds unacceptable, the aide said.

Hamas has masterminded nearly 60 suicide bombings against
Israelis since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000, but has
largely adhered to a truce declared last March.

In fresh violence, an Israeli unmanned drone fired a
missile at Gaza gunmen launching rockets at Israel, causing no
injury, Palestinian security sources and medics said. Islamic
Jihad claimed responsibility for the rockets.

The Israeli army denied firing any missiles but said its
gunners had fired artillery shells at sites in Gaza from where
rockets were launched at Israel, one striking near a “sensitive
installation” in the city of Ashkelon. There were no injuries.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem, Wafa
Amr in Ramallah, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Jonathan Wright
in Cairo)