RAMALLAH/GAZA CITY, 30 January 2006 — Deputies from Fatah confirmed yesterday that the party would not join Hamas in a coalition government.
The unexpected Hamas victory has led to alarm both within Israel, which has ruled out dealing with a Hamas administration, and among international players in the troubled peace process who are to meet today to discuss their response.
After meetings with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, scheduled to formally ask Hamas early next week to form a new government, Fatah deputies said they had agreed to sit on the opposition benches despite calls by Hamas for a “political partnership”. The decision was expected to be rubberstamped after a meeting of the movement’s ruling central committee, chaired by Abbas.
“We have a decision from all the Fatah leadership not to enter the new government,” said deputy Abdullah Abdullah after holding talks with Abbas at his West Bank headquarters.
“By giving Hamas a majority, the Palestinian people gave them a mandate to form the new government and we will be a positive opposition,” he told AFP.
Israeli Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday Israel would boycott a Palestinian government that includes Hamas and urged foreign leaders to do the same until the group meets Israeli terms.
“Israel will not hold any contacts with the Palestinians” unless Hamas “renounced terror”, recognized the Jewish state’s right to exist and accepted all agreements Palestinian leaders had signed with Israel, Olmert said in broadcast remarks.
Presiding over a Cabinet meeting he said he delivered that message in telephone calls to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdallah and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
“These principles are acceptable to the international community. I do not intend to make any compromise on this matter,” said Olmert.
In an interview with Newsweek, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said Hamas should respect a US-backed “road map” that envisages a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel and interim peace deals Palestinian leaders made with Israel.
Nazif also said Hamas, which scored a crushing victory over the long-dominant Fatah party in Wednesday’s parliamentary election, should be given a chance to show its intentions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who landed in Tel Aviv to begin a visit to Israel and Palestinian areas, said she would shun Hamas but meet President Abbas in Ramallah. Merkel is the first European Union leader to visit the area since the Palestinian vote. Fatah leaders have so far rejected joining any coalition with Hamas, whose anti-corruption platform, charity network and nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000, propelled it to victory.
Hamas leaders have rejected as blackmail Western demands that it renounce violence against Israel or risk losing aid vital to the survival of the Palestinian Authority.
But Hamas has largely abided by a cease-fire Abbas reached with Israel, and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted in media reports as saying the group was “behaving responsibly” and would likely continue to curb attacks.
In Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, a local Hamas leader, Mahmoud Ramahi, ruled out political talks with Israel but not contacts with Israeli officials on public works and health issues affecting daily life.
“We were forced to do these things in the past because we live under occupation. We will still live under occupation even if we are in the government,” Ramahi said.
Ramahi told Reuters that Hamas had no immediate plans to try to impose Shariah law in the West Bank and Gaza. “When we get a state, we will leave it to the people to choose,” he said, promising a referendum. “We believe that the people will choose Islamic rule, but this will be after liberation, not now.”
Final results issued yesterday by the Central Elections Commission revised from 76 to 74 the number of seats Hamas won in the 132-member Parliament compared with 45 for Fatah.
In southern Gaza, 9 Fatah officials, in charge of the faction’s recruitment, social work and political activities in the area resigned in response to an election loss widely seen as punishment for years of corruption by the mainstream faction.
Meanwhile, a senior Israeli official said yesterday Israel will sit on customs revenues due to the Palestinians until it is satisfied that they will not end up in the hands of “terrorists”.
Israel currently pays back around $50 million every month to the Palestinian Authority as a reimbursement for customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports.
The spluttering Palestinian economy, which has nosedived during the past five years of Middle East violence, is heavily dependent on the Israeli receipts and on international aid.
But, speaking after the weekly Cabinet, a senior official told journalists that all the money would be screened in the wake of the win for Hamas.
— Additional input from agencies
