Hamas given boost after PFLP says ready to join government

In this hand out made available by the Palestinian
Press Office, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas
waves to the crowds as he travels through the streets
of the West Bank town of Ramallah. Abbas brushed
aside Hams protests and pledged to push through with
his plan for a referendum in a bid to end the bitter
factional feuding.(AFP/PPO-HO/Omar al-Rashidi)

by Nasser Abu Bakr

May 28, 2006

Yahoo news

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - The radical Hamas group was given a boost when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced it was willing to join the Hamas-led coalition government.

The announcement came as tensions between Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and the Islamist group intensified after Abbas brushed aside protests from Hamas and pledged to push through with his plan for a referendum.

The PFLP, which holds three seats in the 132-member parliament, refused to join the Hamas government in March over Hamas's failure to recognise the supremacy of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), headed by Abbas.

But on Sunday the leftist group said it was ready to enter government after Hamas agreed on the restructuring of the PLO.

"The PFLP is ready to join the Hamas government and open a dialogue to find a mechanism for entering the government," Nasser el-Qafaunar, a member of the group's politburo told AFP.

Abbas, who hosted a meeting with representatives of Palestinian factions Sunday evening, said he was not prepared for the bickering between the governing Hamas movement and his own Fatah party to continue for much longer.

The Palestinian Authority president dropped a political bombshell last Thursday at the start of two days of cross-party talks when he announced that he would call a referendum in 10 days to endorse a programme drawn up by imprisoned faction leaders unless the factions settled their differences.

The talks ended on Friday evening without any major breakthrough although there was an agreement to set up a "higher committee" to intensify efforts to reach common ground.

The two factions have been involved in a series of deadly clashes in recent weeks that have left at least 10 people dead.

The document at the centre of the possible referendum advocates a national unity government and Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including east Jerusalem.

During their Sunday talks, the sides agreed to discuss the details of the document article by article in an effort to bridge differences and carry on meeting daily until the expiration of Abbas's ultimatum.

An opinion poll released by the Ramallah-based Near East Consulting on Sunday found a massive 89 percent of the public supported the plan drawn up earlier this month by senior figures in all factions, including Fatah and Hamas, who are currently serving time in Israeli prisons.

Were Hamas to accept the document, it would amount to an implicit recognition of Israel's right to exist.

Interior minister Siad Siam reflected a sense of anger within Hamas over Abbas's tactics warning against trying to impose any solution.

We have always supported any initiative to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people but not the imposition of other people's opinions and a special agenda," Siam told reporters.

Abbas however said he would act as he saw fit rather than bow to the will of the factions.

"I speak in the name of all the Palestinian people and what's important for me is the position of all the Palestinian people, not the parties," he told AFP on a tour through Ramallah which saw him visit victims of a recent Israeli army raid in hospital.

While Abbas is committed to negotiating a peace agreement with Israel, Hamas remains committed to the Jewish state's destruction -- a stance which has seen it boycotted and branded a terrorist organisation by the West.

The cuts in aid, allied to an Israeli decision to stop handing over customs duties that it used to collect on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, have left the government essentially bankrupt and unable to pay its employees.

Hamas and Fatah are also at loggerheads over control of the security forces which are meant to be the remit of Abbas as Palestinian Authority president and are stuffed with Fatah supporters.

In another sign of the bitterness between the two sides, Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmud al-Zahar walked out on the Palestinian delegation on the eve of a conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Malaysia to protest the surprise arrival of exiled Fatah leader Faruq Qaddumi as head of the mission.

The Tunis-based Qaddumi also doubles up as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) politburo, a position he has previously used to pull rank on representatives of the Palestinian Authority government.

Link:

Hamas Defies Abbas' Call for Co-Existence

NPR - Sun May 28, 2006

The majority party Hamas rejects Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' demand to accept co-existence with Israel. Abbas' plan implies an end to Hamas' stated aim of destroying the Jewish state.