The New York Times
May 27, 2006
News Analysis
Abbas Enlists Prisoners to Unsettle Hamas
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, May 26 — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud
Abbas, often castigated as weak and reactive, has put
the Islamic group Hamas into a neat political bind
while associating himself with prisoners jailed for
resistance to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land.

Mr. Abbas threatened Thursday that unless Hamas agreed
within 10 days to a call by Palestinian prisoners to
accept the idea of a Palestinian state alongside an
Israel that retreats to its pre-1967 boundaries, he
would bring the matter to a referendum.

Hamas leaders reacted with confusion on Thursday and
skepticism on Friday, as two days of talks between
Hamas and Fatah on a joint political position ended
without result.

Hamas has refused to recognize the right of Israel to
exist as a permanent, sovereign state, insisting that
all of the former Palestine is waqf — land given by
God to Muslims, who can neither cede nor sell it.

But Mr. Abbas's proposal caught Hamas off guard, and
embarrassed it. By siding with the prisoners, who hold
great status in Palestinian society, Mr. Abbas is
hoping to push Hamas either to alter its position and
recognize Israel, thereby reducing the economic siege
on the Palestinian Authority, or to confirm his
position as the sole negotiator for the Palestinians
as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
dominated by Fatah.

When the prisoners' platform was first published, on
May 11, Mr. Abbas immediately endorsed it, saying: "I
adopt the position of those heroes," while Hamas
spokesmen rejected it as containing an implicit
recognition of Israel's right to exist.

Hamas faces a political dilemma, suggested Roni Shaked
of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot: "Saying
'yes' would be betraying its principles, while saying
'no' would be going against the public," which
generally supports a Palestinian state on 1967 lines
alongside Israel.

A result, Mr. Shaked suggested, could be a unity
government, with Fatah letting Mr. Abbas do the
negotiating, which is likely to lead nowhere, while
Hamas can "hold on to power and the government, enjoy
the benefit of the removal of the siege and the
support of the street, while continuing to adhere to
fundamentalist ideas."

But the result could also be further confrontation.

On Friday, the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya,
said in Gaza that a referendum "is not a substitute
for the political program of the government that was
approved in Parliament."

In a sermon to worshipers at a Gaza mosque, Mr. Haniya
said his government would stick to its program. "We
will not recognize the legitimacy of the occupation,
we will not renounce resistance and we will not
recognize unjust agreements," he said.

Ziad Dia, a Hamas participant in the talks with Fatah,
said in a statement that any document that even
implied recognition of "the Zionist entity and ceding
an inch of Palestine" would be rejected. That is also
likely to be the view of the Hamas political
leadership in exile, including central figures like
Khaled Meshal and Mousa Abu Marzook.

The most Hamas has offered thus far is a long-term
truce with Israel once it pulls back to 1967
boundaries, including abandoning East Jerusalem, which
Israel has annexed, and leaves the large settlement
blocs in the West Bank, which Israel says it intends
to keep, with some kind of territorial compensation,
in any final settlement.

Israel has so far called the prisoners' proposal an
internal Palestinian matter, but strongly objects to
it as a basis for talks. The proposal does not
explicitly recognize Israel's right to exist, insists
on the right of return of refugees and their families
to their pre-1948 homes and supports "resistance"
against Israel in areas occupied in 1967 — in other
words, attacks on Israeli settlers in the West Bank
and East Jerusalem, as well as on the Israeli Army.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has just returned from
Washington after telling President Bush of a plan to
pull as many as 70,000 Israeli settlers out of the
West Bank back to the route of the separation barrier.
That would still keep some 8 to 10 percent of the West
Bank in Israeli hands and 175,000 Israelis, plus
200,000 more in East Jerusalem, living on occupied
territory in settlements that much of the world
regards as illegal. Israel also wants to keep some
kind of military presence in the Jordan Valley, inside
the West Bank next to Jordan.

In its own effort to decrease tensions in Gaza, Hamas
on Friday ordered a new militia off the streets and
into compounds, where it is less likely to clash with
the Fatah-dominated security services. There have been
at least a dozen serious clashes and assassination
attempts in the last two weeks.

Said Siyam, the Hamas interior minister, had created
the group, volunteers from Palestinian militant
organizations but dominated by Hamas, ostensibly to
help the demoralized police. Mr. Abbas ordered it
disbanded, but was ignored.

Dressed in black T-shirts, the men, many with the
beards associated with Hamas, seem better trained than
the regular forces in their skirmishes. Their clashes
raised the risk a larger civil war between Fatah and
Hamas, which is trying to consolidate its power in
Gaza.

Prime Minister Haniya said the militia would remain
and would be "a police force that will wear the
uniform of the police." For its part, Israeli
officials confirmed that they had agreed to allow more
arms and ammunition to be passed to Mr. Abbas and his
presidential security forces to support him. The
weaponry is likely to come from Egypt.


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