Occupied Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned against any international rush to recognise a Palestinian government due to be announced under a unity pact between the Fatah and Hamas Islamist groups.
The Israelis and the West classify Hamas as a “terrorist” organisation and have no official dealings with the movement.
But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party signed a reconciliation deal with Hamas in April, said a unity government due to be announced on Monday would comprise ministers without political affiliation, a status that could ease the way for Western engagement.
“I call on all responsible elements in the international community not to rush to recognise a Palestinian government which has Hamas as part of it and which is dependent on Hamas,” Netanyahu, who has said such an administration would be a front for the Islamist group, told his cabinet.
“Hamas is a terrorist organisation that calls for Israel’s destruction, and the international community must not embrace it. That would not bolster peace, it would strengthen terror,” Netanyahu said in public remarks at the cabinet meeting.
Israel froze US-brokered peace talks with Abbas when the unity deal was announced on April 23 after numerous unsuccessful attempts at Palestinian reconciliation since Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah forces in fighting in 2007.
BOYCOTT?
Abbas said on Saturday that Israel “informed us ... they would boycott us if we announced the government”. Netanyahu, in his brief statement on Sunday, made no reference to any Israeli sanctions.
The Israeli occupation has withheld tax revenues from Abbas’s aid-dependent Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, in retaliation for his signing in April of international conventions and treaties after the Israelis reneged on a promised release of Palestinian prisoners.
On Saturday, a Palestinian official said the Israelis had denied requests by three Gaza-based Palestinians expected to be named as ministers to attend the new government’s swearing-in ceremony in the occupied West Bank.
Abbas has said a joint government with Hamas would continue to abide by his policy of recognising the Israeli regime, though the Islamist group insists it would not change its own policy of rejecting its existence.
He has been keen to assure Western donor countries he will remain the key Palestinian decision-maker and that security coordination between his forces and the Israelis will continue.
Both Fatah and Hamas see benefits to a unity pact, though disagreements have blocked them from achieving such a government for years.
With a strict blockade imposed by the Israelis and Egypt, Hamas has been struggling to prop up Gaza’s economy and pay its 40,000 employees. Abbas, for his part, wants to shore up his domestic support since the peace talks with the Israelis collapsed.
