As Hamas rule looms, Abbas presses peace agenda

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – With the inauguration of a Hamas
government all but inevitable next week, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday he could overrule the militant
Islamic group if it continues to block peacemaking with Israel.

“I will exercise my mandate and authority where and when
they are needed to protect the higher interests of the
Palestinian people,” Abbas wrote to Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s
prime minister-designate, in a letter copied to reporters.

The Palestinian Legislative Council is to convene on Monday
for a confidence vote on the 24-member cabinet. Ratification is
seen as certain given the Hamas majority in parliament after it
swept January elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Haniyeh said his government would be sworn in by Wednesday.

The president is empowered by law to fire Haniyeh if his
policies are deemed harmful to the national interest.

Formally committed to the Jewish state’s destruction, Hamas
is rejected as a peace partner by Israel and much of the West
and Abbas, whose long-dominant Fatah faction seeks a
Palestinian state alongside Israel, has appealed for Hamas to
change.

AVOIDED CONFRONTATION

Abbas has previously avoided confrontation, resisting
foreign pressure to crack down on Hamas and other factions
waging a more than 5-year-old Palestinian revolt for fear of
civil war.

“Once your government assumes its responsibilities I ask
you again to … make the necessary corrections to your
program,” the president said in his letter to Haniyeh.

Though it masterminded more than 60 suicide bombings during
a Palestinian revolt that erupted in 2000, Hamas has largely
abided by a ceasefire declared last year and has said it could
extend the truce if Israel ends military crackdowns.

Faced with the threat of international aid cut-offs to the
cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, Hamas has also hinted it
would accept temporary statehood in the West Bank and Gaza.

Haniyeh played down the prospect of a showdown with Abbas.

“We will resolve all political differences between the
institutions of the presidency and the cabinet through
dialogue, cooperation and understanding,” he said.

“We do not seek to cause a constitutional crisis.”

Abbas said in an interview published on Friday that he had
proposed back-channel talks with Israel that would effectively
circumvent Hamas.

But Israel, which holds a general election on Tuesday,
poured cold water on the idea.

“He (Abbas) has failed in the biggest challenge which faced
him from the very outset: to combat terror. As a result of the
failure of his government, Hamas has risen,” said interim Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, the frontrunner candidate.

Olmert has threatened to set the Jewish state’s permanent
borders by 2010 if peacemaking remains frozen. While Israel
quit Gaza last year, Palestinians suspect it will cement a
permanent hold on major Jewish settlement blocs in the West
Bank.

(Additional reporting by Wafa Amr in Ramallah)