[Mb-civic] Hamas Is Alone In Cabinet Plan - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Hamas Is Alone In Cabinet Plan
Other Factions Balk at Joining Government

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 20, 2006; A08

JERUSALEM, March 19 -- Hamas finalized a proposed cabinet Sunday that 
would place several key ministries in the hands of senior leaders but 
not include any other Palestinian faction, precisely the narrowly 
partisan government that the radical Islamic movement had hoped to avoid.

Ismail Haniyeh, the designated prime minister, submitted the list to 
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose secular Fatah party declined to 
join the cabinet. The cabinet's makeup is likely to complicate efforts 
to persuade international donors to continue funding the government once 
Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and 
European Union, assumes control of the ministries.

"Their task was to have as wide a government as possible with Fatah, 
other factions and independents," said Ali Jarbawi, a political science 
professor at Beir Zeit University in the West Bank. "The cabinet they 
have proposed will be, in effect, all Hamas. They are facing a deep 
problem."

Also Sunday, the U.S. ambassador to Israel assembled Israeli and 
Palestinian delegations to discuss mounting humanitarian problems in the 
Gaza Strip resulting from closures of the main cargo passage with 
Israel. The Karni crossing has been shut for most of the year because of 
Israeli security concerns, but shortages of food and medicine are 
beginning to threaten the welfare of Gaza's 1.3 million residents.

Richard Jones, the U.S. ambassador, called the meeting in Tel Aviv on a 
few hours' notice to salvage a U.S.-brokered deal setting out the terms 
of operation at Karni following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last fall. 
In recent weeks, Israeli officials have made clear they want the 
Palestinians to use a southern passage at the intersection of Gaza, 
Israel and Egypt, far from the strip's economic center in the north, 
rather than Karni.

Palestinian officials had refused, citing terms of the deal. But the 
delegations decided Sunday to open the southern passage, known as Kerem 
Shalom, on Monday for humanitarian deliveries from Egypt.

"The ambassador took the initiative to bring the parties together to 
find a way to move humanitarian assistance into Gaza in a way that 
addressed security concerns on both sides," said Stewart Tuttle, the 
U.S. Embassy spokesman.

Haniyeh's proposed cabinet, which was due by the end of the month, could 
change in the weeks ahead. Hamas will probably continue seeking partners 
to broaden its domestic support and assuage international donors, who 
supply nearly half of the Palestinian Authority's roughly $2 billion 
annual budget.

Abbas has demanded that Hamas accept several signed agreements backed by 
his Fatah party that would, in effect, amount to a recognition of 
Israel. Although Palestinian law does not give him the authority to veto 
the proposed cabinet, Abbas could fire Haniyeh immediately after it is 
sworn in by the Hamas-dominated legislature elected in January.

Hamas leaders so far have rejected Abbas's demands and pledged to 
continue confronting Israel "by all means." Abbas's aides have indicated 
in recent days that he will give Hamas a chance to run the ministries 
while working to persuade its leaders to endorse a negotiated two-state 
solution to the conflict.

Abbas will likely wait a few weeks to forward the proposed cabinet to 
parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council. The delay would allow 
Israeli elections on March 28 to conclude before Hamas takes control of 
the ministries, a transition that could otherwise boost the showing of 
Israel's most hawkish parties. It would also give Haniyeh more time to 
recruit another Palestinian party for the cabinet, ideally Fatah, which 
controls the second-largest parliamentary bloc.

Haniyeh came close to bringing in the Popular Front for the Liberation 
of Palestine, a Marxist party that, like Hamas, appears on the U.S. list 
of foreign terrorist organizations. But the leaders of the party, which 
holds three of parliament's 132 seats, announced Sunday that they would 
not participate.

The Palestinian Authority is already in severe financial straits. 
International donors are considering ways of financing humanitarian 
programs for the Palestinians outside channels controlled by Hamas, 
whose charter calls for Israel's destruction.

Israel has frozen the monthly transfer of about $55 million in tax and 
customs revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority under 
an arrangement established by the 1993 Oslo accords. Those transfers 
amount to roughly half of the authority's $115 million monthly payroll 
for 150,000 civil servants and trainees, nearly half of them in the 
security services.

Hamas officials said Haniyeh's cabinet, which was not made public, gives 
the interior and foreign ministries to members of the party, formally 
known as the Islamic Resistance Movement. But many of those nominated to 
run the 24 ministries are technocrats from outside the movement, 
although they have strong ideological connections to it.

Saed Siyam, a former teacher who won the most votes on the Hamas list in 
Gaza, has been nominated as interior minister with control of several 
Palestinian security services. Mahmoud Zahar, a thyroid surgeon and 
hard-liner, would run the Foreign Ministry, although Haniyeh has 
signaled that Abbas will be given wide latitude in dealing with foreign 
governments.

Haniyeh, considered a pragmatic figure within the movement, has been 
working since soon after the party's parliamentary victory to form a 
broad cabinet. But some Palestinian analysts say Hamas would have had a 
better chance of building a national unity government if it had selected 
a figure from outside the movement as prime minister.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/19/AR2006031901014.html?nav=hcmodule
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