Hamas said on Wednesday the Palestinian parliament would meet next week to
vote on its new cabinet despite the Palestine Liberation Organization's
rejection of its governing agenda.
Hamas Prime
Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh attends the weekly session of the
Palestinian parliament in Gaza March 22, 2006.
[Reuters] |
"I will present the Palestinian government, and its social and political
programs, for a vote of confidence to the members of the Palestinian Legislative
Council," Hamas's prime minister-designate, Ismail Haniyeh, said, citing an
agreement with President Mahmoud Abbas.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, slated to be foreign minister, initially said the meeting
would take place on Saturday. But following further consultations with Abbas,
Aziz Dweik, the Hamas speaker of parliament, told reporters the session would
begin on Monday.
Hamas, which crushed Abbas's long-dominant Fatah faction in a January 25
parliamentary election and advocates Israel's destruction, holds a majority in
the legislature.
Hamas officials said the ratification vote was not expected until after March
28, the date of Israel's general election.
Mainstream Israeli political parties reject dealing with Hamas until it
renounces violence, recognizes the Jewish state and abides by prior interim
peace accords.
Chafing at Hamas's refusal to accept the PLO as the sole representative of
the Palestinian people, the PLO's Executive Committee met in the West Bank city
of Ramallah and formally rejected the group's platform.
Abbas on Sunday withheld his acceptance of a cabinet line-up presented by
Haniyeh.
But after calling the Executive Committee into session, he said he would not
stand in the way of parliament's ratification of a Hamas-led government. "There
will be no constitutional crisis, God willing," Abbas told reporters.
Taysir Khaled, a member of the PLO decision-making committee, predicted that
while parliament would likely vote its approval, a Hamas cabinet "would be
isolated by the Arab world and the international community."
Hamas, opposed to the PLO's interim peace deals with the Jewish state,
announced it would form a government alone after all other Palestinian movements
refused to join.
Some factions cited Hamas's refusal to recognize the primacy of the PLO, long
the voice of the Palestinian people and their aspirations for statehood.
Abbas held out the hope that Hamas might still amend its policies. "Nobody
can reject or accept the PLO from which the Palestinian Authority was created,"
he said.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the PLO committee had no right
to interfere in the formation of a government.
Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal, in an interview with Reuters in Abu
Dhabi, said the group would continue to pursue what he called "armed resistance"
against Israeli occupation.
Fatah officials had said they expected Abbas not to spark any constitutional
crisis with Hamas now, but to reserve the right to dismiss a Hamas prime
minister down the line if he concludes the group is violating Palestinian
national interests.
Israel and the United States have pledged to isolate Hamas. The Palestinian
Authority could also face cuts in vital foreign aid once a Hamas-led government
is in place.
"The Israeli people hasn't the time, nor the need, to wait 20 years until
Hamas matures," interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israel's Channel 10
television.