VARIOUS: Palestinian lawmakers approve new coalition government

Palestinian lawmakers meet to approve new coalition government. President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the new government saying it was is a step towards realising a Palestinian State., while Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, spoke of "resistance in all its forms," as the right of the Palestinian people. But Israel still refuses to work with the new government because it has not endorsed the Quartet of Middle East negotiators' terms. Palestinian lawmakers endorsed a new unity cabinet on Saturday (March 17) after Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the Islamist Hamas movement declared that it would uphold the right to "all forms" of resistance to Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas praised the new government as an important step toward realising a Palestinian state. "These steps that we are taking today after the Mecca agreement are only a continuation of the national achievements in order to arrive at our national goal, foremost being ending the occupation of our land which were occupied in 1967, including Al-Quds Al-Sharif (Jerusalem) and securing a just solution to the problem of the refugees according to the resolution 194 and as what was stated in the UN resolution 1515," Abbas told Palestinian legislators in Gaza. Abbas, who heads the Palestine Liberation Organisation, reiterated his endorsement of an Arab League plan that offers full peace with Israel if it withdraws from all the territory it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, however, struck a defiant tone, saying that it was the right of the Palestinian people to resist Israeli occupation. "The government affirms that resistance in all its forms, including popular resistance against the occupation, is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people, that the international community and international agreements have adopted in totality. And its the right of our people to defend themselves from the continuos Israeli aggression," Haniyeh said. Israel ruled out dealing with the Fatah-Hamas coalition, citing Hamas' refusal to accept demands, set by a Quartet of foreign peace mediators a year ago, that it renounce violence, recognise the Jewish state and accept past interim peace deals. "The new Palestinian government has not accepted any of the three international principles. There is no recognition of Israel, there is no acceptance of the formal treaties and most important there is no open clear renunciation of terror," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin said. But with international anxiety mounting over the diplomatic impasse, factional violence and deepening Palestinian poverty, there have been signs of Western flexibility on talking to non-Hamas members of the new cabinet. United Nations Middle East envoy Alvaro de Soto attended the Palestinian Legislative Council meeting in Ramallah, on the West Bank. He said the formation of the new Palestinian government was encouraging. "We are encouraged by the steps that have been taken so far. They are very important firstly for the Palestinian people. Its essential for the Palestinian people that there be a national unity government in order to establish Law and order," De Soto said. Eighty-seven of the 132 Palestinian Legislative Council's members gathered in Gaza and Ramallah in a video-linked session. Forty-one lawmakers, including 37 from Hamas, could not attend because they are in Israeli jails. Israeli travel curbs prevented all the PLC members from meeting in a single venue. Haniyeh and Abbas spoke ahead of a confidence vote seen as a formality given the combined strength of Fatah and Hamas. The coalition's future may hang on whether it can erode the foreign boycott of the aid-dependent Palestinian Authority, which has been unable to pay full wages to its employees for a year. The Quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations suspended direct aid to the government after Hamas beat Fatah in elections and took power last March. The United States is expected to continue its boycott, but a U.S. official said on Friday (March 15) that Washington would keep the door open to unofficial contacts with Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, an independent with strong reformist credentials.

ITN Source | March 18, 2007

Tags:. .jerusalem. .aggression. .coalitions. .principles. .refugees