/ 7 September 2006

Hamas woos Fatah

Rival Palestinian factions are close to forming a new power-sharing government, which Hamas expects to lead, the Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, said this week.

A national unity government is intended to lift the international freeze on funding to the Palestinian Authority, which has left it facing an economic crisis and a wave of strikes by thousands of unpaid civil servants.

But Hamas officials say even in a new joint government with Fatah, the movement will not give explicit recognition to Israel — one of the conditions set by the international community for funding to resume.

Haniyeh said his party would not give up leadership of the government. ”The majority in the Parliament will head the government,” he said.

One of his advisers, Ahmed Yousef, said that Hamas had received ”signals” from European governments suggesting they would accept a Hamas-led power-sharing government but acknowledged there had been no similar signal from the United States or Israel. It may still be some weeks before a government is sworn in.

Haniyeh said talks about power sharing between his movement and Fatah, the political party loyal to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, were close to a conclusion. ”We are not talking about problems, only procedures to complete the discussion,” he said.

When the Hamas government was formed in March, the US and Europe halted their monthly $30-million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, insisting Hamas had to first recognise the state of Israel, end violence and accept previous peace agreements. Israel also froze its $60-million a month in customs duty transfers.

As a result the 160 000 employees of the Palestinian Authority have not been paid since March, including doctors and teachers. Most Palestinian schools have remained closed since term started on Saturday and a growing lawlessness has gripped the Gaza Strip.

Haniyeh said the new government would be based on an agreement known as the Prisoners’ Document, which calls for a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in 1967 — some regard this as implicit recognition of Israel’s existence. It also says armed resistance to Israel should be confined to the land occupied in 1967 and it gives authority to Abbas to negotiate with Israel. Asked if Hamas would now recognise Israel, Haniyeh said: ”The programme is the Prisoners’ ­Document. You can read it yourself.”

But even if there is a broader Palestinian government, there is little sign it would spark a new round of peace talks: Israel and the Palestinians appear as far apart as ever. Construction of 690 new homes was announced this week in two settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite an obligation to halt settlement expansion.

After the Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, was captured on June 25, Israel detained dozens of Hamas politicians and launched a series of military operations there, killing more than 200 people.

But Haniyeh dismissed reports in the Arab press that a deal was near to free Shalit. Asked if he now accepted that capturing the soldier was a mistake, he said: ”It happened. The Israeli aggression was too big for this kind of an operation. The Palestinian people knew the big operation by the ­Israelis was not about the soldier, it was to eliminate the government.”

Haniyeh (43) is regarded by some as a moderate within the Hamas movement and championed the decision to take part in elections. That put him at odds with the more hardline military wing — responsible for capturing the Israeli soldier — and the Hamas political leader, Khaled Mashaal, who is based in Damascus.

This week Haniyeh said the detention of dozens of Hamas politicians risked undermining the movement’s political project. ”The danger of all this is to create a political vacuum,” he said. ”That can lead to chaos and a situation even more dangerous than we are in now. It can push people to lose hope in the agenda of democracy.” — Â