[Dialogue] Climbdown as Hamas Agrees to Israeli State

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Thursday, June 22, 2006 by the Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk>  / UK 

Climbdown as Hamas Agrees to Israeli State
. Negotiator says group recognises right to exist
. Hope for end to crippling sanctions on Palestinians



by Chris McGreal

 

Hamas has made a major political climbdown by agreeing to sections of a
document that recognise Israel's right to exist and a negotiated two-state
solution, according to Palestinian leaders. 

In a bitter struggle for power, Hamas is bowing to an ultimatum from the
Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to endorse the document drawn up by
Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails, or face a national
referendum on the issue that could see the Islamist group stripped of power
if it loses. 

But final agreement on the paper, designed to end international sanctions
against the Hamas government that have crippled the Palestinian economy, has
been slowed by wrangling over a national unity administration and the
question of who speaks for the Palestinians. 

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's
executive committee and a lead negotiator on the prisoners' document, said
Hamas had agreed to sections which call for a negotiated and final agreement
with Israel to establish a Palestinian state on the territories occupied in
1967, including East Jerusalem. 

"Hamas is prepared to accept those parts of the document because they think
it is a way to get rid of a lot of its problems with the international
community. That's why it will accept all the document eventually," he said. 

Hamas, facing a deep internal split over recognition of the Jewish state,
declined to discuss the negotiations in detail. 

If it formally approves the entire document, it will represent a significant
shift from its founding goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic state and
its more recent position of agreeing a long-term ceasefire, over a
generation or more, if a Palestinian state is formed on the occupied
territories but without formally recognising the Jewish state. 

Mr Abed Rabbo said he expected an agreement in the coming days, but that
important differences still had to be settled, particularly over the
document's call for the formation of a national unity government. 

He described that as "the major issue that will determine the fate of two
nations for decades" because a unity administration, built around a common
policy of negotiations with Israel, would be the only way to combat its
plans to unilaterally impose its final borders and annex parts of the
occupied territories. 

More immediately, this was also the only way to restore foreign aid. But Mr
Abed Rabbo added it would be a mistake to see the approval of the prisoners'
document as sufficient, in itself, to end international sanctions against
the Palestinian Authority. "The document calls for the foundation of a
national unity government as the basis of a new programme that will approach
the world," he said. 

"But the document is part of a package. It should be accompanied by an
agreement on policies for a new government. The document won't change
conditions and relations on its own." 

Mr Abed Rabbo said the July 26 referendum would be called off if there was
agreement on the document, but that a ballot could be held later if Hamas
blocked the formation of a new government or failed to agree on a
negotiations policy. 

Abdullah Abdullah, a Fatah MP and chairman of the parliamentary political
committee, said other differences remained over the document, including
Fatah's insistence that the PLO continues to be recognised as the sole
representative of the Palestinian people in negotiations with Israel, and
that all existing agreements between the PLO and Israel be recognised. 

Israel has dismissed the prisoners' document as changing little because,
among other things, it advocates continued resistance. But a complete
renunciation of violence is unlikely to come while Israeli attacks continue
to claim the lives of innocent Palestinians. 

Yesterday, a women was killed and six children injured in an Israeli missile
attack in Gaza. On Tuesday, an Israeli air force rocket killed three
children, two boys aged five and 16, and a seven-year-old girl. In both
cases, Israel said it was targeting militants who escaped injury. 

Israel has killed 13 civilians, most of them children, in four air strikes
this month. It is also probably responsible for the killing of a family of
seven during a shell barrage against a Gaza beach two weeks ago. 

Guardian Unlimited C Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

###

 

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