APRIL 2006
After
the Hamas Election
GAZA CITY: Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya said Monday his Hamas government was ready to talk to the international community to end the Middle East conflict but would not change its hard-line stance on Israel. Haniyya told MPs the Palestinians had the right to continue the independence "struggle" but stressed his desire for talks with the international community, including Washington, to end the conflict with Israel.
He also urged the US , which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, to alter its stance toward the Palestinians, and rejected threats from the West to slash funding unless his administration radically alters its hard-line platform .
| US severs all ties with Hamas By Simon Freeman and agencies
The United States cut all diplomatic ties with the newly-sworn in Hamas government this evening as it pushed the Palestinian Authority further towards isolation. An e-mail was sent to all diplomats and contractors directing them to sever contact with Hamas-appointed government ministers, even those who are not members of the Islamist organisation. Communication will still be permitted with the office of Mahmoud Abbas, the President, and with non-Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament. The order took effect from 6pm (1600 GMT), when the President began to swear in the new 25-member Cabinet. Analysts say that today's move was a deliberate move to ratchet up pressure on Hamas. The US has already begun manoeuvring to sideline the terror organisation - which swept to a shock landslide victory in elections in January - unless it agrees recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by peace accords. The decision will limit a wide range of US programmes, including security co-ordination through the Palestinian Authority’s Interior Ministry. A US official told Reuters that the ban had been extended to apply to the few independents within the Hamas-led Cabinet because they enjoyed the support of, and were consequently beholden to, the Hamas-appointed Prime Minister, Ismail Haniya. After other Palestinian factions refused to join a coalition, the victorious Islamist group nominated a Cabinet whose senior members have all been jailed, deported and escaped Israeli assassination. Chief among Mr Haniya’s 24 ministers are Dr Mahmoud al-Zahar, a hardliner, as Foreign Minister, and Said Siyam as Interior Minister. Most others are Hamas members, along with some pro-Islamist independents and technocrats, one woman and one Christian. American law bars the government from providing direct assistance to any group on the State Department’s list of banned terrorist organisations. The communication break came after Hamas greeted Israel's election of a centrist-dominated government, led by the Kadima party, as a "declaration of war". A spokesman said that the Israeli electorate’s choice of Ehud Olmert as the new Prime Minister could escalate the conflict. Under Mr Olmert’s disengagement strategy, Israel would unilaterally turn its $2 billion razor-wire and concrete West Bank separation barrier into a political border, withdrawing from small settlements outside it in return for securing its hold on the large Jewish settlements within Palestinian territories. The EU, a member of the so-called international Quartet seeking to resurrect hopes of peace, is now facing tough questions over how to continue its financial support to the Palestinians. Tony Blair has said that Britain will cut its £156 million aid to the PA if Hamas refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. The Prime Minister has acknowledged that this could prompt Hamas to turn to Iran for support, but said that he had little choice. "What we cannot do is end
up funding the government when the government is
inimical to the whole basis on which we want to
settle the Middle East problem," he said. |
His wide-ranging speech to the Palestinian Parliament had been due to be followed by a vote to approve his 24-member Cabinet but the number of MPs wanting to speak forced a delay until Tuesday, which coincides with Israel's national election.
"Our government will spare no effort to reach a just peace in the region, putting an end to the occupation and restoring out rights," Haniyya told MPs.
"We have never been supporters of war, terrorism or bloodletting. Instead it is the Israeli occupation that waged all forms of terrorism against our people in chasing them out of their homeland, besieging it and starving it."
Israel has refused to have any dealings with a Hamas-led government and has imposed sanctions including travel restrictions which forced Haniyya to deliver his speech to the Ramallah-based Parliament via video-link from Gaza City.
The Hamas-dominated administration is expected to takeoffice on Wednesday.
But while holding off any suggestion of negotiating with Israel, Haniyya welcomed the prospect of continued international involvement in the peace process, in particular from the so-called Middle East Quartet.
"Our government will be prepared to hold dialogue with the international quartet about the ways to end the conflict and install calm in the region," he said.
The Quartet - the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States - is the sponsor of the largely moribund "road map" peace plan which aims for the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
Both the United States and
European Union have threatened to slash funding to the
Palestinian Authority unless Hamas recognises Israel,
renounces violence and respects past international
agreements.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
- The Gush Shalom
Peace Plan
THERE IS A CHOICE! - THERE IS A SOLUTION!
By Uri Avnery
Gush-Shalom.org
3-16-6
- We all long for an end to the conflict, for the termination of the bloodshed and a life in peace, in a state of which we can be proud.
- We will not be able to realize this by means of "Reassembling", "Disengagement", the Apartheid Wall, the unilateral fixing of the "Permanent Borders" (in agreement with the settlers) and all the other patent medicines and Fata Morganas. All these have already been tried and have already failed.
- There is only one real way:
- 1. The elected Government of Israel will invite the elected Government of Palestine to _direct negotiations_, on the basis of equality and mutual respect, for the implementation of the "Two States for Two Peoples" solution.
- 2. The opening of the negotiations will constitute the _mutual recognition_ of the right to existence of the two states within the borders that will be determined by the negotiations.
- 3. Neither of the two parties will be asked to give up its _religious and spiritual affinity _with all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, irrespective of the division of political sovereignty.
- 4. The _permanent borders_ between the two states will be based on the Green Line. The final route will be fixed by negotiation, with the possibility of agreed exchanges of territory.
- 5. The Jewish quarters of _Jerusalem_, together with the Western Wall, will belong to Israel. The Arab quarters of Jerusalem, together with the compound of the mosques, will belong to Palestine.
- 6. All the other questions, such as security arrangements, refugees, economic relations and water, will be resolved by _mutual agreement_.
- 7. The negotiations will be completed in no more than three years.
- 8. An _armistice_ (hudnah) will come into force for the duration of the negotiations. Each of the two governments will be responsible for a complete cessation of violence by its military forces as well as by all armed factions, groups and individuals. There will be no building activity in the existing settlements, nor will new settlements be set up.
- 9. A neutral international committee, with the participation of _international personalities_ acceptable to both sides, will oversee the implementation.
- /We call upon all the voters of the Peace Camp to vote for a party that is close to these principles. . /
- GUSH SHALOM
- 972-3-1732 - P.O.Box 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org - info@gush-shalom.org
- Special large ad published in Haaretz,
- March 17, 2006