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PA President Mahmoud Abbas gestures as he arrives at the swearing-in session of the incoming Palestinian Parliament in Ramallah. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners February 19, 2006 |
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A new Palestinian parliament dominated by Hamas has been sworn in, with immediate pressure put on the new legislators to honor existing peace accords and use negotiations - not violence - in its dealings with Israel.
Hamas leaders rejected those calls, but signaled a willingness to compromise.
In the battle for Palestinians' political future, time is short and stakes are high: Israel is on the verge of imposing sanctions that would seal off the Gaza Strip.
Hooked up via video conferencing because Israel wouldn't allow them to travel between the two territories, the new Palestinian lawmakers in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip took their oath of office collectively on Saturday, reciting a prayer with upturned palms.
At the back of a meeting hall in the Samarian city of Ramallah, Hamas lawmakers - the men sporting traditional Muslim beards and the women in headscarves and long robes - held up portraits of fellow legislators sitting in Israeli jails.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas then urged the new legislature, 74 of whose 132 seats now belong to Hamas, not to endanger diplomatic gains worked out over years of painstaking talks with Israel and the international community.
"We, as a presidency and a government, will continue our commitment to the negotiation process as the sole political, pragmatic and strategic choice through which we reap the fruit of our struggle and sacrifices over the long decades," Abbas said.
He reminded the new legislators "of the need to respect all signed agreements," including the so-called Oslo Accords of the 1990s that set up the Palestinian Authority.
"We have accepted and respected the right of any individual, group or political faction to voice its objection to the Oslo Accords. But we have not and will not accept any questioning of the Accords' legitimacy. Indeed, from the hour they were endorsed, they became a political reality to which we remain committed," Abbas said.
Hamas leaders have said they would consider agreeing to a long-term truce if Israel withdrew from Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem, which it captured in the 1967 Mideast War.
The White House took a wait-and-see approach to the new Hamas-dominated parliament.
"Our position on Hamas has been quite clear on what they need to do. They must disarm, renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist," said U.S. National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones. "We'll still continue to watch closely and wait and see. We'll see what approach they take as they govern."
Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin said Israel will view the Palestinian Authority as a "hostile entity" unless Hamas accepts those conditions.
"These conditions are nonnegotiable. It is not whether there will be a short-term cease-fire or a long-term cease-fire. It is not whether they want to eliminate us now or if they will wait 20 years to do it," Gissin said. "A democratic victory does not provide legitimacy or a quick dry cleaning service to a terrorist organization."
Meanwhile, two Palestinians stabbed and critically wounded a 45-year-old Israeli man late Saturday in the Judean settlement of Maaleh Adumim, said police spokesman Shlomi Saguy. The man was found bleeding on the street and told police, just before he lost consciousness, that he was stabbed by a pair of Palestinians, who then fled, he said.
Abbas' speech to parliament was likely to set up a political showdown with Hamas, which has up to five weeks to form a government. If that government refuses to heed Abbas' demand to recognize past peace accords and accept negotiations, then Abbas, as president of the Palestinian Authority and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has the right to dismiss it.
That in turn would almost certainly trigger a parliamentary crisis, or possibly new elections, because any alternative government would need the support of the Hamas-led parliament.
Abbas also expressed his backing of Hamas in saying that the election results have led to "the creation of a new political reality". Hamas "will be asked to form the new government after consultations. On my part, you (Hamas) will find all the cooperation and encouragement you need, because our national interest is our first and final goal, and is above any individual faction." He asserted.
The backdrop to all this is an Israeli Cabinet decision expected Sunday on whether to impose sanctions that would sever virtually all contact between Gaza and Israel, keeping out Palestinian goods and workers, and making it impossible to travel between Judea and Samaria, and Gaza. In addition, some $50 million in monthly tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority would be halted.
The proposed sanctions do not include humanitarian shipments into Gaza, but they're likely to devastate the already frail Gazan economy.
The world will be watching to see if Hamas will recognize Israel and renounce violence. If it doesn't, the Palestinians risk losing not just Israeli dispensations but also hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. and Europe - the lifeline of the Palestinian economy.
For now, Hamas remains committed to Israel's destruction, and a leading Hamas legislator, Mushir al-Masri, said after Abbas' speech that negotiations with Israel are "not on our agenda."
Nonetheless, after Saturday's session, both Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' choice for prime minister, said they would try to resolve their deep differences through dialogue.
"Why assume that there will be crisis? Let us resort to dialogue. Everything comes through dialogue," Abbas told reporters after leaving parliament.
Haniyeh said "dialogue and understanding" should be used "to preserve the national unity of the Palestinian people and promote the higher interests of our people."
Abbas' speech seemed mostly directed at Hamas, reviewing years of delicate negotiations he said earned the Palestinians indispensable world recognition and speaking of the need to "open up to the world" and to resist "chauvinism."
Fatah lawmakers applauded twice during his speech, when he mentioned the role of the Palestinian woman, who, he said, "was an equal to men in martyrdom and imprisonment, and she must be an equal to him in all rights."
And in what appeared to be a reference to Hamas' suicide bombing campaign that killed hundreds of Israelis, Abbas said, "Let us educate our children the culture of life, not the culture of death."
Abbas called for the PLO, which up to now has been responsible for all negotiations with Israel, to be strengthened - a possible bypass of a Hamas-led government.
In his speech, Abbas railed against Israel for what he called its "racist separation wall" in Judea and Samaria and its "closures, checkpoints, destruction of infrastructure, uprooting of trees and many other measures that have turned Palestinians' life into hell..."
At the same time, he said he wants to restart peace talks quickly, based on the U.S.-backed "road map" plan which envisions a Palestinian state alongside Israel. "Let us together make peace today, rather than tomorrow," Abbas said. "Let us live in two neighboring states."
He called the threat of aid cuts and other sanctions "blackmail."
"The Palestinian people should not be punished for its democratic choice that was expressed through the ballot box. The leadership of this people, and I personally, refuse this blackmail. I ask everyone to abandon it," he said.
In one of its first acts, parliament elected Hamas lawmaker Abdel Aziz Duaik its new speaker. The outgoing speaker, Rauhi Fattouh of Fatah, handed over the gavel, to cheers and applause from Hamas legislators.
Duaik said Hamas officials would meet with Abbas in Gaza on Sunday.
Excerpts from Mahmoud Abbas' speech:
*"I am determined to carry out my program, on which I was elected and mandated, and to apply the main tenets that I have hoisted to reach a stable, unified, strong, effective authority that provides security and safety to all its citizens; an authority which has the ability to keep its commitments and protect the interests of its people; an authority that respects the law and commits to implementing it; an authority whose institutions are committed to the separation of powers, particularly in terms of strengthening the judiciary, imposing the rule of law for all, with one legitimate arm, with a pluralistic system; an authority that lays the foundations for the establishment of our independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."
*"We all have the responsibility of confronting the aspects of chaos that reign in some of our cities, such as looting, armed attacks, kidnapping of our foreign friends and Arab brothers who live on our land and who are among us to offer support and cooperation. I will not permit, and the government should not permit either, the continuation of this disgraceful phenomenon. Firm and effective measures should be taken to put an end to it."
*"There is a Palestinian partner who is ready to sit at the negotiation table with an Israeli partner so as to reach a solution that is based on international legitimacy, the Arab peace initiative and the road map. A solution that is based on respecting all previous agreements and commitments. We want a just solution that guarantees the fulfillment of peace, not a unilateral, partial or temporary solution that will kill the chance for peace, nor a state with provisional borders. We are awaiting the Israeli government to determine its direction and to make its decision in this regard. Our decision is to be completely ready to start permanent status negotiations immediately."
AP contributed to this report.
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