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Abbas Seeks a New Government that Would Seal Alliance with Hamas

(New York Times) Isabel Kershner - President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority asked Rami Hamdallah, the prime minister, on Thursday to form a "government of national consensus" that would unite warring Palestinian factions for the first time in seven years and could send Israeli-Palestinian relations into a tailspin. The new government, made up of politically independent professionals, would formally ally Abbas' Palestine Liberation Organization, which is dominated by the mainstream Fatah faction, and its rival, Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, under the terms of a unity pact reached last month. Hamas has refused to recognize Israel, which, like the U.S. and the EU, classifies Hamas as a terrorist organization. The EU, which gives substantial aid to the Palestinian Authority, has said it will support a new government of technocrats and continue direct financial assistance so long as the government upholds international principles of nonviolence, accepts previous agreements with Israel and recognizes Israel's right to exist. Israeli officials have said they received a specific commitment in the past from the American administration that it backed Israel's position of not negotiating or dealing with a government in which Hamas played a role unless Hamas accepted those international principles. But more recent signals from Washington raise doubts about the Israeli assertions. "Clearly there are differences of opinion between Israel and the United States," said Michael Herzog, a fellow of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Israeli military official. "Even if there were such understandings," he said, referring to a past U.S. commitment, "the U.S. is not there today."
2014-05-30 00:00:00
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