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Hamas Rejects Plan by Abbas To Call Elections
The speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, before a crowd in Ramallah, came after a brutal few days of factional fighting.
(By Muhammed Muheisen -- Associated Press)
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Abbas's 90-minute speech, marked by anger and sarcasm, came after a particularly brutal few days of factional fighting in the territories.
At the start of the week, gunmen killed the three young sons of a Fatah-affiliated intelligence officer, and a Hamas military commander was assassinated two days later. Then, on Thursday evening, gunmen fired on a convoy carrying Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in what Hamas called an assassination attempt.
[On Sunday, in a dawn raid on a Gaza training camp, masked gunmen killed an officer of an elite force loyal to Abbas, Reuters reported.]
"Are there risks? Yes, there are risks," Saeb Erekat, a Fatah lawmaker and close Abbas adviser, said Saturday of early elections. "But the risks presented by these ugly incitements we have been seeing are much greater."
In his often tart speech, the usually mild-mannered Abbas outlined what amounted to an indictment of the Hamas leadership. Abbas began with his own January 2005 election following the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and traced the territories' downward arc, warning of "a collapse in our social values."
Abbas said the Hamas military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, doomed Gaza's economic prospects following the Israeli withdrawal last year by firing rockets into southern Israel. He said the brigades' June 25 capture of an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid, an event Hamas has celebrated as a victory, has resulted only in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians in subsequent Israeli military operations.
In inviting Hamas to form the cabinet following its election victory, Abbas urged its leaders to adopt his governing principles, including the creation of a future Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Hamas has refused to do so during months of talks to form a unity government, which has been announced several times only to founder behind the scenes over the details of its political program and which party would receive the key ministries. International donors have cut off aid to the government until Hamas recognizes the Jewish state, renounces violence and endorses previously signed international agreements backed by Fatah.
Abbas said Hamas has failed in its governing responsibility by refusing to compromise to end the sanctions, which have left 165,000 civil servants, nearly half of them members of the security services, with only a small fraction of their pay for months.
"We will not allow a civil war," Abbas said to applause. "We are committed, until the end, to the democratic process."
