Palestinian unity government takes office

Israel won't work with Hamas-Fatah coalition that condones violence

	Palestinian lawmakers vote for a new unity government on Saturday. Israel has ruled out dealing with the new coalition, citing Hamas’s refusal to forswear violence, recognize the Jewish state and accept past interim peace deals.
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinians installed a new, more moderate coalition government on Saturday, in hopes of persuading the international community to end its isolation of the Palestinian Authority and lift a year of bruising sanctions.

Israel promptly announced it wouldn’t deal with the coalition, because governing partners Hamas and Fatah stopped short of explicitly recognizing the Jewish state or renouncing violence, as the international community has demanded.

But the new alliance, which replaced the militantly anti-Israel government led by the Islamic Hamas, appeared to implicitly recognize Israel by calling for a Palestinian state on lands the Israelis captured in 1967. Norway immediately recognized the new coalition and announced it would lift sanctions. Britain and the U.N. signaled flexibility — suggesting money could start flowing again if the coalition keeps anti-Israel activities in check.

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The Hamas-Fatah merger, however, is in danger of crumbling quickly over ideological differences, and long-standing enmities between the two factions and their legions of gunmen.

Palestinian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly — 83 to 3 — to approve the government, then leapt to their feet in a standing ovation after the result was announced. Forty-one of the legislature’s 132 members, most of them members of Hamas, are held in Israeli jails and weren’t able to vote. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah swore in the new 25-member Cabinet shortly after the parliament session.

Pleas for lifting of boycott
The rise to power of Hamas, a group that has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings, provoked Israel, the West and Russia to impose severe funding restrictions last year in a bid to pressure the militants to recognize the Jewish state, disarm and accept past peace accords.

Finance Minister Salam Fayyad warned that the new government would not be able to function for long unless the international community lifted its boycott and increased assistance.

“We do face a very serious and crippling financial crisis,” he said. “Without the help of the international community, it is not going to be possible for us to sustain our operations.”

Mixed messages emerged on Saturday from the political platform the new government announced, and from the speeches leaders of the governing factions made to parliament. But, in sum, they reflected a softening of Hamas’ stance toward Israel.

Presenting the government’s program to parliament, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said the governing alliance would work “first and foremost to establish an independent Palestinian state,” with disputed Jerusalem as its capital, on lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast War.

He said the Palestinians maintained the right to resist occupation, but would also seek to widen a truce with Israel, now limited to the Gaza Strip.

Ideological gaps in coalition
Abbas, a moderate, focused on conciliatory language, asserting that the Palestinian people “reject violence in all its forms” and seek a comprehensive “peace of freedom and equality” that would be based on negotiations.

Abbas’ words underscored the ideological gaps that remain between him and Hamas.

While the alliance didn’t meet international conditions for acceptance, it pledged to “respect” previous peace deals between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

It also called for peace talks to be conducted by Abbas, and for any future deal to be submitted to a national referendum, suggesting Hamas would not enjoy veto power.