Hamas call parliament session to approve cabinet

The militant Islamic Hamas today moved a step closer to taking control of the Palestinian government, calling a special session of parliament to approve its new Cabinet, sweeping aside objections from the Palestinian president over its refusal to recognise Israel.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to state his complaints, but in the end, he will give his blessing to the new Hamas governing team, an official said.

Incoming Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement that the parliament would convene on Saturday to approve the new Cabinet.

The session may take several days, but the outcome is a foregone conclusion, since Hamas won 72 of the 132 seats in the January 25 parliamentary election, trouncing Abbas’ Fatah.

Haniyeh is forming a Cabinet with 24 Hamas activists and experts, after no other party agreed to join.

Hamas wanted Fatah in the government, partly to deflect world criticism of Hamas, regarded as a terror group by Israel, the US and European Union, which are threatening to cut hundreds of millions of pounds of vitally needed aid.

However, Fatah declined, apparently hoping the Hamas government will fail and the people will restore Fatah to power.

The next legal steps are parliamentary approval and Abbas’ endorsement. But Abbas inserted an extra stage, putting the Hamas Cabinet and platform before the Fatah-dominated PLO Executive Committee. Predictably, the body refused to endorse them in a meeting today.

“We decided that we can’t deal with the platform of this government or accept it, because the platform neglects the main achievement of the Palestinian people, which is the PLO,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a PLO official.

However, Abbas does not have the authority to veto the Cabinet or its platform.

Abbas was elected president in January 2005 and has three more years to serve, regardless of the makeup of the parliament.

Fatah legislator Saeb Erekat said Abbas planned to send Haniyeh a letter tomorrow expressing the PLO’s reservations but authorising the Hamas leader to present his Cabinet to the legislature this weekend.

“He will tell them that he will not obstruct their ability to go to the council with the Cabinet,” he said.

Incoming Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas official, said the debate over Hamas’ governing program was over.

“Nobody can make demands on us at this moment,” he said.

The main points of contention between the two are the status of the PLO and endorsement of interim peace accords.

Hamas’ programme also refuses to recognise a 1988 unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence that included a recognition of Israel.

For decades, the PLO, dominated by Abbas’ Fatah, has been recognised in the world as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. In that capacity, it negotiated agreements with Israel in the early 1990s that led to creation of the Palestinian Authority.

But the Islamic Hamas opposes the PLO and rejects the agreements, since it does not accept the idea of a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East.

Its platform says only that Hamas would examine the agreements and adopt the parts it feels are beneficial to the Palestinian people.

In violence early today, Israeli troops entered the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp near the West Bank town of Jericho to arrest three Islamic Jihad militants, the army said.

The soldiers surrounded three houses and called on the suspects to come out and two of the men surrendered, the army said.

The army fired at one of the houses to get the remaining suspect to emerge, the army said. Troops then entered and saw a “suspicious figure” under mattresses and, thinking he was armed, fired and killed the man, the army said.

No weapon was found, the army said.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian legislator for Jericho, condemned the killing, saying that Israeli raids and closures were making life intolerable for the people of Jericho.

Last week Israeli forces raided the jail in Jericho an captured six top militants after destroying large parts of the compound in a day-long siege.