Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday gave the Hamas
government an extra 48 hours to accept a manifesto implicitly
recognising Israel, or face a referendum on the issue.
Hamas, an Islamic militant group, swept to power in January
elections and has been locked in a power struggle with Abbas ever
since. It rejects the manifesto penned by Palestinians in Israeli
jails.
Abbas had set Tuesday as the deadline for Hamas to embrace the
manifesto on Palestinian statehood but delayed a showdown after
what officials said were appeals by Arab leaders.
A referendum, with opinion polls suggesting most Palestinians
support the document, would also be seen as a confidence vote on
the Hamas government, whose election led the West and Israel to cut
off funds to the Palestinian Authority.
"Abbas will within 48 hours issue the decree for holding the
referendum," his spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah, said after the
president met with the Palestine Liberation Organisation's (PLO)
Executive Committee.
Yasser Abed Rabo, a PLO official close to Abbas, said the
president would hold a news conference by the weekend to announce a
date for the vote unless Hamas changed its mind.
But despite the failure of talks late on Monday, both Abbas and
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, left the door open
for further dialogue.
"We demand more meetings and more dialogue and we should not
start by using time as a threat," Haniyeh told his cabinet at its
weekly meeting.
Abed Rabbo quoted Abbas as saying he would agree to talks with
Hamas on resolving the dispute over the manifesto up until the day
the referendum is held.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a member of Hamas' exiled leadership in
Syria, said Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh had offered to host
negotiations between the group and Abbas's Fatah faction.
"We don't know if Fatah has accepted, but Hamas is ready to hold
talks in Yemen at the highest level," Abu Marzouk said.
Hamas has said a referendum would be illegal so soon after the
parliamentary election in January.
Although opinion polls favor Abbas, if the referendum goes
against him it would be seen as a vote against Fatah policies of
negotiation with Israel. The government might then ask Abbas to
step down and urge him to call a presidential election.
The manifesto calls for a Palestinian state on all of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured from Jordan and Egypt in
the 1967 Middle East war.
(China Daily June 7, 2006)
