Abbas urges Hamas to peace
2006-05-15 20:09
Ramallah - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has urged Hamas to renounce violence and respect peace agreements, but also warned Israel that taking a unilateral approach to peacemaking would fuel extremism.
In a speech to mark the anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, a day Palestinians call "Nakba", or the great catastrophe, Abbas said Hamas should honour existing peace deals.
Without referring directly to Hamas, he said Palestinians should not be satisfied with "fiery speeches and slogans that could bring about international isolation".
Such speeches, he said, "dangerously make us fall into the trap that Israel wants, which is to reject negotiations using the excuse that there is no Palestinian partner".
Abbas's speech, pre-recorded as he is on a visit to Russia, was broadcast live on Palestinian television and radio on Monday.
Warning on 'final borders'
Hamas defeated Abbas's Fatah movement in January elections. The party is officially sworn to Israel's destruction and has ruled out any negotiations.
Hamas said the movement rejected any change in its attitude towards Israel as "long as the occupation continues and the world continues to ignore Palestinian rights".
In his speech, Abbas also warned Israel that unilaterally setting "final borders" with a Palestinian state, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has pledged to do by 2010 if peace talks cannot be resumed, risked provoking a deeper spiral of violence.
Olmert said those borders roughly would follow a barrier Israel was building in the occupied West Bank.
The barrier encompasses Jewish settlements built on land Palestinians consider theirs.
Abbas said: "As for Israel, we call on it to release our withheld funds and to backtrack on unilateral solutions because it will kill the peace process forever, and will ignite the region and increase extremism."
Since March, Israel has withheld $55m a month in tax revenues it collects on the Palestinians' behalf.
Crowds gathered in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the West Bank, to hear Abbas's speech over loudspeakers. They stood in silence as sirens wailed to mark Nakba.
Arab states attacked Israel the day after it was proclaimed on May 14 1948.
In the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel.
Palestinian coffers $1.3bn in debt
Tensions between Fatah and Hamas have increased sharply since Hamas came to power, with factions allied to the rival movements sometimes facing off in Gaza.
At the same time, Israel has effectively broken off all links with the Hamas-led government, which it, the United States and the European Union have branded a terrorist group.
Hamas now has virtually no income, but has inherited government coffers it says were already $1.3bn in debt.
The EU said on Monday it hoped to get a new mechanism for channelling aid to the Palestinians, bypassing Hamas, up and running soon.