[Mb-civic] Hamas Assumes Control of Parliament - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Hamas Assumes Control of Parliament
Palestinian Group Holds Firm on Not Recognizing Israel

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 19, 2006; A01

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Feb. 18 -- The radical Islamic group Hamas took 
control of the Palestinian parliament Saturday during a somber 
swearing-in ceremony, and legislators from the new majority quickly made 
clear that they would not abide by signed agreements that recognize 
Israel's right to exist.

In a speech to the new 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council, the 
Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, staunchly defended past agreements 
with Israel, including the 1993 Oslo accords that created the 
Palestinian Authority and legislature that Hamas entered Saturday. 
Abbas, the Palestinian Authority's president, called for the immediate 
renewal of negotiations with the goal of establishing an independent 
Palestinian state alongside Israel, declaring, "There is a Palestinian 
partner" for such talks.

"We, as presidency and government, will continue our commitment to the 
negotiation process as the sole political, pragmatic and strategic 
choice through which we reap the fruit of our struggle and sacrifices 
over the long decades," Abbas told lawmakers gathered here in the 
government compound known as the Muqata, as well as those who 
participated by teleconference from the Gaza Strip.

Past agreements with Israel were backed by Abbas's Fatah party, now a 
minority for the first time. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization 
by the United States and the European Union, maintains that negotiations 
have failed to achieve Palestinian independence and has favored an armed 
campaign that has included more than 50 suicide attacks inside Israel 
during the most recent uprising.

"As we depend on the negotiation process as a political choice, we 
should continue to develop other forms of peaceful popular struggle," 
said Abbas, who retains presidential powers over security, diplomacy and 
the cabinet.

However, Naif Rajoub, a Hamas legislator from the West Bank city of 
Hebron, said that the leaders of Hamas "respect the president, but that 
does not mean we agree with everything he said. Oslo has died."

Mohammed Ramahi, a Hamas legislator who serves as spokesman for the 
group's parliamentary faction, said Israel would have to compromise 
before any peace process could begin. "If the Israelis recognize our 
rights and put an end to the occupation, then we can discuss all the 
issues. But before that, we are not going to."

During his 50-minute speech, Abbas did not threaten to deny Hamas the 
right to form the next cabinet if it fails to renounce violence, 
recognize the Jewish state and abide by past agreements, an ultimatum 
Israeli officials had hoped he would deliver as they consider economic 
sanctions against the Palestinian Authority. He said Hamas would choose 
the next prime minister and form the cabinet after winning a 74-seat 
parliamentary majority in elections last month that created what he 
called "a new political reality."

But his speech gave shape to the political conflict ahead as he and 
Hamas, known formally as the Islamic Resistance Movement, struggle to 
advance their vastly different programs.

Abbas called for consolidating the various Palestinian militias into the 
state security services, reviving peace negotiations and making a 
commitment to religious pluralism. Each conflicts to some degree with 
Hamas's long-term vision of an Islamic state on land that now includes 
Israel.

Partisan rivalry is running high inside the Palestinian Authority, and 
Israel is leading a diplomatic effort to isolate the authority 
politically and financially from the international funding on which it 
relies for survival. An estimated 1 million Palestinians depend on 
paychecks issued by the Palestinian Authority for their livelihoods.

The Israeli cabinet is scheduled to vote Sunday on a series of policy 
options that would effectively cut off Gaza and withhold funds from the 
Palestinian government.

The cabinet may decide to prevent 4,000 Palestinians in Gaza who work in 
Israel from continuing to do so, tighten already difficult crossing 
procedures into Israel from Gaza and the West Bank, and cancel the 
permits that Palestinian legislators must have to travel between the two 
territories.

In addition, Israel will likely stop the monthly transfer of about $55 
million in sales tax and customs fees it collects on behalf of the 
Palestinian Authority, depriving the government of about a third of its 
operating budget.

Although Israeli officials have warned that Hamas could seek funding 
from Israel's enemies, including Iran, should the roughly $1 billion in 
annual aid from Western donors cease, Abbas said, "We will not be led 
into an axis of any sort." President Bush called Iran part of "an axis 
of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address.

There were few outward expressions of celebration Saturday either here 
or in Gaza, where much of the Hamas leadership remained after Israel 
refused to allow them to travel here for the ceremony. Only when Aziz 
Duwaik, a Hamas legislator, was elected to the post of parliament 
speaker did the meeting hall in Gaza erupt in raucous applause. Duwaik, 
an urban planning professor from Hebron, received 70 votes while 46 
legislators abstained.

In person or by video, 116 of the 132 legislators attended the session. 
Fourteen members of parliament are in prison -- all but one in Israel -- 
while two others are wanted by Israeli authorities and would not risk 
traveling in the West Bank. When the prisoners' names were called during 
the opening roll call, members of the audience held up their framed 
photographs from the rows of metal chairs.

Hamas lawmakers said they would begin forming a cabinet in the coming 
days, led most likely by Ismail Haniyeh, the party's consensus choice 
for prime minister. Abbas has the power to fire the prime minister and 
disband the cabinet, but not to dissolve parliament.

Fatah officials reiterated their position Saturday that they would not 
join a Hamas cabinet, saying their secular-nationalist program, which 
includes negotiations with Israel, is at odds with Hamas's political 
vision. Many of them have also said that Hamas should be left to suffer 
the political consequences alone as it tries to govern the occupied 
territories.

"For us this is not a matter of principle, but an issue of the central 
problem of governing," said Nasser Kidwa, the outgoing foreign minister 
from Fatah who attended the parliamentary session, although he is not a 
member. "At this point there is no question that we cannot join. But if 
they consider a different political program, then that's something else."

Hamas leaders have said they do not intend to alter their plans after 
joining the government, although some of them have suggested that a 
long-term truce with Israel is possible if it withdraws from all 
territory occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, including East 
Jerusalem. The party's "Change and Reform" ticket defeated Fatah on a 
platform that emphasized the need for a change in the government after 
years of corrupt and inept administration by the former ruling party.

"It looks like we will have a bipolar reality," said Hanan Ashrawi, a 
legislator from the small Third Way movement that stressed 
anti-corruption and reform in its campaign. "But whether this leads to a 
larger clash between the president and Hamas, I don't know. Hamas at the 
moment seems to be trying to avoid such clashes."

As head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the recognized 
representative of Palestinians inside and outside the territories, Abbas 
remains in charge of peace policy. He called for a quick return to the 
U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.

Announced in 2003, the plan originally called for creation of a 
Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2005. But the process 
has been dormant in recent years, and Hamas rejects the two-state 
solution the plan envisions. Hamas has pointed to Israel's unilateral 
withdrawal last year from Gaza, where 8,500 Jewish settlers lived for 
four decades among 1.3 million Palestinians, as evidence that its 
military strikes are more effective than negotiations.

Abbas maintained, however: "We are confident that there is no military 
solution to the conflict. Negotiations between us as equal partners 
should put a long-due end to the cycle of violence."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/18/AR2006021801571.html
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