Unity Cabinet Offered By Palestinian Premier

Israeli Officials Quickly Denounce Platform

JERUSALEM, March 15 -- Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas presented a unity government Thursday that for the first time since the Islamic movement took power almost a year ago includes rival political parties and a pledge to honor previous agreements that recognize Israel.

But the new political program, which Palestinian leaders hope will end a year-long international aid embargo that has crippled the Hamas-led government, does not renounce violence or accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Israel and international donors have insisted that the new government meet those conditions before direct financial aid can be restored.

Israeli officials immediately denounced the new government, which is scheduled to come before the Palestinian parliament Saturday for approval.

"The Palestinian unity government sadly does not include explicit or implicit adoption of the international principles," said Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "The Israeli position remains the same. We will not recognize or deal with this government or any member of it."

Hamas has struggled to govern the Palestinian territories in the face of intense opposition from Israel, foreign donors and the rival Fatah movement it ousted from power. The unity government Haniyeh assembled during several weeks of talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a Fatah leader, represents Hamas's attempt to maintain power without softening its Islamic principles and staunch opposition to Israel.

In agreeing last month to form a power-sharing government, Hamas and Fatah leaders were eager to end a year of sporadic factional fighting in which an estimated 130 Palestinians died. The accord has calmed those internal tensions, at least for the moment. But the unity government is unlikely to win the international support needed for a complete resumption of economic aid that once accounted for nearly half the government's operating budget.

The Bush administration, as well as Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, decided last month to reserve judgment on the new government until it was formed. But cracks among those donors, known collectively as the Quartet, have appeared over whether to ease the dire economic situation in the territories by restoring aid even if the government fails to meet international demands.

The platform states that "resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people" in opposing Israel's occupation of territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war. But it also says the new government will work to extend the temporary truce with Israel, reached in the Gaza Strip in November, to the more populous West Bank.

The program endorses what it calls the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes inside Israel, which the Israeli government views as a threat to the Jewish character of the state.

In a congratulatory note to the newly designated Palestinian foreign minister, Ziad Abu Amr, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called the new government "a first important step towards the full respect of the Quartet's three principles." Douste-Blazy invited Abu Amr to Paris, or to meet in the territories, "so that we can consider together the prospects for the period now beginning."

"No doubt there is a different position by the American administration and the Israelis," Haniyeh said at a news conference in Gaza. "We are going to do what we can to support national unity, to remove the siege and to maintain relations with the international community."

The platform calls for Abbas, whose Fatah party has backed previous accords with Israel, to manage future negotiations and for any final agreement to be put before the Palestinian people in the form of a national referendum.

Eisin said the Israeli government would continue contacts with Abbas. But she said those talks would focus on security and humanitarian issues, not the emergence of a Palestinian state. The new cabinet includes nine members of Hamas and six from Fatah, as well as an assortment of independent figures and leaders of smaller parties. Hamas relinquished several key ministries, including the Interior, Foreign and Finance portfolios. Those will now be in the hands of politicians and technocrats from outside the two main parties.

Among them are Salam Fayyad, a former World Bank official and finance minister tapped to return to the cabinet post, and Abu Amr, who will take over the Foreign Ministry from Hamas hard-liner Mahmoud al-Zahar. Israel and the Bush administration have worked in the past with both men, but Eisin indicated that Israel would no longer do so.