Abbas Calls for Hamas Cabinet

Much of the U.S. support for the Palestinian Authority arrives in the form of development projects, which last year totaled about $400 million in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as money for nongovernmental agencies. The U.S. aid budget this year is about $150 million.

At the same time, Israeli officials are considering whether to stop reimbursing the Palestinian Authority for the sales tax the Israeli government collects on its behalf. That revenue, collected from sales in the West Bank, totals about $50 million a month. The arrangement was part of the 1993 Oslo accords, which the Israeli government says the Palestinian Authority will soon violate by including a group that does not recognize Israel.

Hamas won 76 parliamentary seats in Wednesday's election, a showing that took even its leadership by surprise. But Hamas's transition from rejecting the Palestinian Authority to leading its legislature and cabinet holds significant political risks, which began emerging Friday as its leaders began the complicated work of choosing ministry chiefs.

Hamas opposed the Oslo accords with Israel that created the Palestinian Authority, and until these parliamentary elections refused to participate in the national political process. Abbas, whose hold on power appears increasingly tenuous, proceeded with the elections on the assumption that persuading Hamas to accept negotiations with Israel and disarm its military wing would be easier with the Islamic movement inside the government.

Hamas advocates the creation of a Palestinian nation on land that now includes Israel, a position that conflicts with the two-state solution envisioned by the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the "road map." Fatah has supported the process since it was inaugurated in 2003, although talks have been frozen because of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Although Hamas holds enough seats in the parliament to dominate the next cabinet, its leaders have expressed an interest in forging a governing coalition with Fatah, a secular-nationalist movement it has accused of corruption and incompetence for years. But Fatah leaders ruled out a partnership Friday to force Hamas to bear full responsibility for the weak and nearly bankrupt government it is about to inherit.

"They are proposing a government of national unity, but how can they say this?" said Saeb Erekat, a Fatah leader who won his seat in the Jericho district. "Unless Hamas accepts the Palestinian Authority, the signed agreements and commitments it has made, just like any other political party, how can we participate? It's Hamas that will have to change."

Hamas faces its own internal divisions, masked during the election season, that will likely emerge as it adapts its views on the role of Islam in public life, contacts with Israel and the preservation of its armed wing.

The Hamas leadership in exile, led by Khalid Mashal, has generally held a more unyielding view on relations with Israel and participating in the political process than some of the newly elected members of parliament, who will take office in about six weeks.

Mashal, who lives in the Syrian capital of Damascus, called Abbas on Thursday to discuss forming a government. He had opposed Hamas's participation in the Palestinian Authority. Haniyeh, by contrast, favored running in the 1996 legislative elections before being overruled by the Hamas leadership at the time.

"Winning a majority wasn't even anticipated by Hamas," said Ali Jarbawi, a political science professor at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. "This process could now end up in a hung parliament."

Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington and special correspondent Islam Abdulkareem in Gaza City contributed to this report.