Gaza violence threatens peace talks

01/28/2007

Civil War Threatens Palestine


By Sharmila Devi in Jerusalem
Financial Times
Published: January 28 2007


Factional clashes that have killed at least 22 people in the past few days in the Gaza Strip threaten to overshadow a meeting this week of the international peacemaking Quartet.

Representatives of the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations are due to meet in Washington on February 2 to discuss the stalled peace process.

But Palestinians have engaged in the fiercest infighting since a Hamas victory in parliamentary elections a year ago triggered a western aid embargo on the ruling Islamists.

Talks between Hamas and the Fatah faction on a national unity government were derailed by the Gaza violence amid appeals for calm.

“You have to put weapons away from streets and you have to end all forms of tensions,” Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, said on Sunday.

He also made a direct attack on US plans to fund security forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah. Mr Haniyeh criticised “troublemakers who are trying to veer away from the path of our people” by receiving “dirty American funding and arms”.

Mr Abbas was away on a European trip, which included a stop at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, where he met Tzipi Livni, Israeli foreign minister.

On Sunday in Gaza, a bomb blast damaged the home of a bodyguard of Mohamed Dahlan, a Fatah strongman. There were gun battles outside the headquarters of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Service and the Hamas-led police force.

In December, Mr Abbas called for early presidential and parliamentary elections after months of talks failed to produce a new government. Since then, at least 52 Palestinians have been killed in factional clashes. Meanwhile, Hamas could easily derail any new polls unless the group gave its assent.

Prospects for any renewed international peacemaking push remain bleak when set against the intra-Palestinian fighting.

In Israel, meanwhile, the cabinet on Sunday approved the appointment of the first Muslim minister in the country’s history.

Raleb Majadele of the Labour party faces a Knesset vote on Monday to confirm him as minister without portfolio in the coalition government.

Arabs make up about 20 per cent of Israel’s citizens and have long complained of discrimination.