GAZA CITY, 18 November 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday denied having rejected Hamas’ candidate to head a promised national unity Cabinet as reported by a website close to the ruling Islamist movement.
“This information is baseless. Everything is still being looked at and when we have got results we will announce them,” Abbas told reporters.
Quoting “informed sources,” a website close to Hamas had claimed Abbas was opposed to Mohammed Shabir after the United States, Israel and “certain Arab parties” rejected the independent academic as “too close” to the Islamists.
Abbas made his position clear to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, head of the current Hamas government, during talks in Gaza City late on Thursday, the Palestinian Information Center said.
“I categorically deny that President Abbas has rejected any of the candidates put forward by Hamas, including Mohammed Shabir,” Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.
Harangued by journalists while leaving a Gaza City mosque following Friday prayers, Haniyeh refused to comment other than calling his talks with Abbas late on Thursday “good and positive.”
“The joint Hamas-Fatah committee will meet again today to continue consultations on the unity government,” the premier added.
The government will resign within two or three days to make way for the new unity government that could help end a punishing Western aid boycott and resume long-frozen peace talks with Israel, a senior Palestinian negotiator said yesterday.
The negotiator took part Thursday in the nighttime meeting in Gaza to press forward with efforts to bring their rival factions together. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was not public. The two leaders were set to meet again later yesterday. Despite the reported progress, Abbas has said he hopes to tie unity efforts to a broader deal that would see Israel release Palestinian prisoners, including several jailed Hamas Cabinet ministers, in return for the release of a captured Israeli soldier. Slow progress on such a deal could delay the creation of the new government.
Formation of a moderate Cabinet to replace the one headed by Hamas is an important plank in a new peace initiative offered Thursday by France and Spain, aimed at stopping constant Israel-Palestinian violence and moving toward peace negotiations.
The concept is to replace the Cabinet of Hamas ministers with independent experts linked to, but not members of, the two movements. Abbas and his Palestine Liberation Organization would be charged with handling peace negotiations, while the Cabinet would deal with the daily affairs of the Palestinian areas.
The object is to satisfy Western demands for a Palestinian leadership that recognizes Israel, renounces violence and accepts previous peace deals. At stake is vital foreign aid — hundreds of millions of dollars a year that have kept the Palestinian Authority afloat for the past decade. The West cut off the aid in March when Hamas took office after sweeping Fatah in a parliamentary election.
Israel, for its part, was signaling that it would not undertake a large-scale military operation in Gaza in response to daily rocket salvos by Gaza fighters at Israeli towns and villages. A rocket killed a woman in the town of Sderot on Tuesday.
Those calling for a broad, crushing offensive “need to remember that the terrorism will never end altogether,” the Haaretz newspaper website quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling reporters on his return flight from a five-day trip to the US.
“This war (against rocket fire) will not be over in one blow,” he said.
Israeli restraint could benefit the new European peace plan, emerging from the Gaza bloodshed — the unceasing rocket attacks and Israeli counterstrikes. Late Thursday and early yesterday, Israeli warplanes blasted several houses in Gaza after warning their residents to leave, Palestinians said. Israel said the houses were used for weapons.
“We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes,” Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero declared as he and French President Jacques Chirac presented the plan.
But Israel strongly opposed the plan, insisting on direct negotiations and rejecting international peace conferences or mediators. “These are Spanish ideas, not coordinated with the European Union or with Israel,” said Amira Oron, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “Israel believes that it is right to conduct direct negotiations with all sides of the conflict.”
The Spanish plan has five parts: an immediate cease-fire, a Palestinian unity government that can gain international recognition, an exchange of prisoners — including the Israeli soldiers whose capture sparked the war in Lebanon and fighting in Gaza this summer — talks between Abbas and Olmert and an international mission in Gaza to monitor the truce.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who is close to Abbas, said any international peace initiative was welcome, but he stopped short of a warm endorsement of the new one.
— With input from agencies
