RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan. 15 -- Mahmoud Abbas was sworn in as president of the Palestinian Authority on Saturday and appealed to Israel for talks "so that we can end, once and for all, the historic conflict between us." He also called for a return to negotiations on the "road map" peace plan backed by the United States.
A day after Israel suspended contacts with the Palestinians because of continuing attacks, Abbas proposed going beyond the road map and launching parallel talks to resolve the key issues that have divided the two sides for decades -- the status of Jerusalem, the return of Palestinian refugees to ancestral lands inside Israel and the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visits the tomb of Yasser Arafat after his swearing-in ceremony in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
(Ammar Awad via AP)
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"I say to the Israeli leadership and to the Israeli people: We are two people destined to live side by side, and to share this land between us. The only alternative to peace is the continuation of the occupation and the conflict," said Abbas, who, for years, has been involved in peace negotiations with Israel.
"Let us start implementing the road map, and in parallel, let us start discussing the permanent status issues so that we can end, once and for all, the historic conflict between us."
The road map, adopted by Israel and the Palestinians in 2003, is a performance-based peace plan authored by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations that called for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with two states living peacefully by the end of this year, a goal now deemed unachievable. The plan stalled about 18 months ago when Israel and the Palestinians refused to implement key provisions.
"There is no necessity to find an alternative to the road map," said Gideon Meir, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official who noted that the Palestinians had failed to implement one of their first responsibilities under the plan -- the disarming and dismantling of Palestinian militant groups. Signaling the issue's continued importance, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suspended ties with the Palestinians Friday after three groups asserted responsibility for a Thursday attack on a Gaza border crossing that killed six Israelis.
"He might have satisfied his own audience, but here in Israel there's disappointment," Meir said about the speech. "On the issue of terrorism, there was nothing there about the need to dismantle the infrastructure of terror. We want to go back to the negotiating table and make peace with this guy, but we need to hear the right language from the new president of the Palestinian Authority."
Abbas, who has said he wants to negotiate a cease-fire with Palestinian militants rather than try to disarm them by force, referred indirectly in his speech to Thursday's killings in Gaza and Israel's suspension of contacts, condemning both. "This does not help bring about the calm needed to enable a credible, serious peace process. We are seeking a mutual cease-fire to end this vicious circle."
Even as Abbas was criticizing the violence, Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians in three separate incidents in Gaza on Saturday. And while celebrating his victory and inauguration, 46 officials from the Palestinian Central Elections Commission resigned in protest of what they said were electoral misdeeds that they said Abbas campaign officials forced them to commit on election day. The charges, which included ordering the extension of voting times by two hours so more Abbas supporters could cast ballots, were not severe enough to have altered the outcome, the officials said. Abbas won with more than 62 percent of the vote.
Abbas, 69, is only the second president of the Palestinian Authority, the entity that governs the West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to 3.6 million Palestinians. He was elected a week ago to succeed Yasser Arafat, the father and symbol of the Palestinian national movement who died Nov. 11 in a hospital near Paris after a brief illness.
Abbas, commonly known as Abu Mazen, was elected to a five-year term. He also assumed Arafat's role as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the international body that represents the estimated 4.8 million Palestinians who live outside the West Bank and Gaza.
Placing a bandaged hand atop the Koran -- his finger was slammed in a car door during the election campaign -- Abbas was sworn in at 12:33 p.m. Saturday in a meeting hall of the Palestinian Legislative Council at Arafat's battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem. Several hundred diplomats and other foreign dignitaries attended the ceremony, along with senior religious figures, cabinet ministers and other Palestinian luminaries and officials.
In his speech, Abbas said he dedicated his electoral victory to "the symbol of our cause, Yasser Arafat," mentioning his name five times during the 30-minute address.
Abbas emphasized his dedication to the rule of law and to continuing judicial, security, political and economic reforms. Calling the Jan. 9 elections a "democratic epic," he vowed to hold legislative elections on July 17 and urged efforts "to further extend the election process to civil organizations, trade unions, and political forces and factions so as to rejuvenate our domestic political life."
At the same time that Israel underscored its demands for immediate action to curb Palestinian militants, Abbas laid down priorities of his own.
"Our hand is extended toward an Israeli partner for making peace. But partnership is not [achieved] through words, but rather deeds. It is through ending assassinations, the siege on our towns, arrests, land confiscations, settlement activity, the separation wall and home demolitions," Abbas said.
"You must ensure that we do not re-enter the labyrinth of preconditions that preclude progress in implementation," he said in remarks aimed at the road map authors. "You must ensure we do not get stuck in the maze of long-term partial or interim solutions designed to delay reaching a full and comprehensive solution."
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