CAIRO: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday he would issue a decree on Sunday to hold elections by January 24, a move that could raise pressure on Hamas to sign an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation deal. Egypt has been trying for more than a year to close a rift between Abbas’ secular Fatah party and Islamist Hamas, which won a parliamentary election in 2006 and took over the Gaza Strip in a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007.
“Based on the Constitution, we are obliged to issue a decree on October 25 to hold presidential and parliamentary elections before January 24, and we will issue it,” Abbas said after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.
Abbas had said last week that he would hold elections as planned in January unless Hamas agreed to the reconciliation deal, which would delay the polls until June.
Abbas was in Cairo for talks with President Hosni Mubarak after the signing of a unity deal with Hamas was put on hold.
“Fatah completely supported the Egyptian proposal … but then Hamas put down obstacles to achieving a reconciliation,” Abbas said after meeting the Egyptian leader: the latest salvo in a war of words with Hamas.
Fatah has signed a draft accord drawn up by Egypt but Hamas has repeatedly postponed its official response, saying it needs more time to consider the deal.
Analysts say that Abbas would not be able to hold full elections in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank without a deal with Hamas, which has vowed to block voting in Gaza if the ballot was scheduled without its agreement.
“[Abbas] is just maneuvering and exerting pressure,” said Hasan Nafaa, political science professor at Cairo University.“If he holds the elections without Hamas, he will be the ruler of the West Bank only, and therefore he will decrease his legitimacy as a president of the Palestinian Authority.”
Egypt had invited Fatah and Hamas to attend a ceremony later this month in Cairo to sign the reconciliation pact.
But Hamas asked for a postponement and said it was angered after Abbas’ government approved a UN decision to delay action on the so-called Goldstone report, which accuses Hamas and Israel of war crimes in Gaza but is most critical of the Jewish state.
Abbas accused Hamas on Tuesday of using his government’s initial support for the report’s delay as a pretext to reject the Egyptian brokered unity deal, but he left the door open for reconciliation. – Reuters, AFP
Israel calls for changing international law to legalize its violations
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed his government on Tuesday to draw up proposals to amend the international laws of war after a damning UN report on its war in Gaza.
The security cabinet did not, however, discuss calls made by ministers for an internal investigation into the 22-day offensive at the turn of the year that killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, an official told AFP.
“The prime minister instructed the relevant government bodies to examine a worldwide campaign to amend the international laws of war to adapt them to the spread of global terrorism,” his office said in a statement.
Israel was dealt a heavy diplomatic blow with the adoption by the UN Human Rights Council of the report that accused both Israel and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip of war crimes.
Israel’s closest allies, the United States, Britain and France urged it to investigate war-crime allegations raised by the fact-finding missions headed by Richard Goldstone, a former international war crimes prosecutor.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak backed Netanyahu’s call for a diplomatic campaign, saying that Israel should propose changes in the international laws of war “in order to facilitate the war on terrorism,” an official quoted him as saying.
“It is in the interest of anyone fighting terrorism. We must give the IDF [Israeli Army] the full backing to have the freedom of action,” Barak said. – AFP
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