Another Try At A Palestinian Government

(CBS/AP)  Ignoring Hamas' vehement protests, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday swore in a new government without his political rivals, outlawed Hamas militias and said he'll push hard for a restoration of foreign aid to the Palestinians after a punishing 15-month boycott.

Meanwhile, Israel intensified the blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza.

With its armor on the edge of the Gaza Strip, Israel warned it's ready to move in if threatened, reports CBS News foreign correspondent Richard Roth. But right now it's just applying pressure…at Gaza's pumps, for instance.

They'll soon run dry. Israel is cutting off fuel supplies to Gaza for cars and cooking.

A run on bread and other basic supplies intensified too, driving the price of a box of Marlboro cigarettes, a reliable gauge of shortages, up by a third.

That's also part of America's new Palestinian policy: to squeeze the radical Islamic group, adds Roth.

Hamas seized control of Gaza last week after five days of intense fighting against forces loyal to Abbas' Fatah. The takeover prompted Abbas to dissolve a Fatah-Hamas coalition government and appoint a new Cabinet excluding the Islamic group.

The hurried swearing-in ceremony of the new Cabinet left the Palestinians effectively with two governments: the Hamas leadership headed by deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza and the new Cabinet led by the Western-backed economist Salam Fayyad in the West Bank.

"The first priority of our government is security and the security situation," Fayyad told reporters. "The mission will be difficult and hard, but not impossible."

Fayyad, an independent, will retain his post as finance minister and also serve as foreign minister in the emergency government. The small Cabinet is dominated by independents, including human rights activists and business people.

In his speech, Fayyad stressed that the government represented Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians claim both areas for a state, but the internal strife has endangered that goal.

Addressing the Palestinians in Gaza, he said: "You are in our hearts, and the top of our agenda. The dark images, the shameful things that are alien to our traditions ... are not going to stop us." It is "time to work together for Palestine," he said.

Abbas cleared the way for the Cabinet to take power by issuing a decree that annulled a law requiring the government to be approved by parliament, which is dominated by Hamas. He also issued a decree outlawing Hamas' militias "due to their military coup against the Palestinian legitimacy and its institutions."

However, Abbas' attempts to assert control only deepened the Palestinian divisions. In Gaza, Haniyeh called the new government illegal and insisted he remains in power. "The national unity government asserts here that we are fulfilling our duty according to our law," he said.

In the showdown, much of the international community, including the United States, the European Union and moderate Arab states, is backing Abbas. Declarations of support were likely to be followed soon by a resumption of foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, which was cut when Hamas took office last year. The sanctions have caused widespread suffering in the Palestinian areas.

"The first goal we are working to achieve is to end the siege and have a unique relationship with all the nations," Abbas said after swearing in the new Cabinet.

Both Israel and the United States already have said they will work to bolster Abbas, while isolating Hamas. The U.S., EU and Israel consider Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings, a terrorist group.

At the outset of a trip to the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the new Palestinian government would create a "new opportunity" for reviving peace talks. "We will act with all our might not to miss this opportunity," Olmert said. The situation in Gaza is expected to dominate Olmert's meeting at the White House on Tuesday.

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[jjp735i]

Will Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the new government ingore Bush and get it right or will they follow Bush again and fail?

[radiob-2009]

Related

June 18, 2007, 1:18 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israel has sent its first consignment of medical supplies to Gaza through the Red Cross to Gaza. It is blocked at the Erez crossing together with foodstuffs by the absence of authority on the Palestinian side to take delivery.

Hamas has stepped up the scale of its smuggling activities from Egyptian Sinai, importing quantities of Katyusha rockets, guns, explosives and ammunition through the tunnels under the Philadelphi route.

[patriotic9]

It doesn't matter with the RELIGIOUS BELIEF of the EUROPEAN INVADERS IN PALESTINE.

If HITLER killed EUROPEANS, price should be paid by HITLER not those PALESTINIANS who can't even speak the language spoken by HITLER.

CONCENTRATION CAMPS were in GERMANY not in PALESTINE. Israel does have a right to exsit in GERMANY, not in a completely different CONTINENT and COUNTRY far away from GERMANY, named PALESTINE.

For the survival of HUMANITY, we need to kick RELIGION out of POLITICS.

EUROPEANS killed by HITLER and price paid by PALESTINIANS is the continuation of same PSYCHOSIS according to which if SINS were comitted by ADAM and EVE, SINNERS are those NEW BORN children who can't even think about comitting a SIN and the price is paid by a third PARTY named JESUS.

CONCENTRATION CAMPS in GERMANY and ISREAL founded in PALESTINE is as PSYCHOTIC as those who deny JESUS as a MESSIAH and accuse his mother of FORNICATION, are GOD-CHOSEN and those who love JESUS and believe him as SON OF THE GOD, are GOD-NEGLECTED.

CHRISTIANITY is PSYCHOSIS and CHRISTIANS are PSYCHOTICS.

It's rediculous to waste time on those PSYCHOTICS who think that SANTA CLAUSE comes on a FLYING DEER to distribute candies

[jasonking4]

Hamas is the elected government of Palestine! US and Israel insisted on elections. When Fateh lost those elections fair and square to Hamas, the US said it didn't want to work with Hamas. WHAT DECEIT.

What kind of democracy does the US want?

Where it can choose the leaders itself, set its own benchmarks and go against the will of the people. Oh yeah, I forget that IRAQ is the model of middle eastern democracy that the US promotes. What crass hiprcracy. The world does not buy this two-faced stance anymore.

[neoconrcrazy]

Israel and the US unilaterally decided that
they could no longer live with Fatah and its leader (Yassir Arafat).
Now, they've decided that Fatah is the salvation of Israel. We can
see that after a low intensity conflict, with the Bush administration
helping Fatah elements with arms and money,
they've been able to achieve a rather minor achievement, something
that would have been easily accomplished in 2005, that is
supporting Fatah. What would have been even better would be
finding a way to live with Hamas having a productive role in the
coalition government. We need to remember that the Palestinian
government was formed as a result of elections the entire world
perceived as legitimate, and representative of Palestinian aspirations.

Now, Israel and the Bush administration have decided that they only
want to work with one faction, whether the resulting government is
considered to be legally constituted and legitimate or not, and they've
chosen Fatah as the new strategy within the Israeli occupied territories.

The aid issue might seem like great news to some. But the fact of the matter is that the initial money
being released are tax and customs fees that belong to the
Palestinian people, more than $600 million, which the Palestinians
desperately needed for social and other purposes, but were being
deprived of by Israel in partnership and with full support of the Bush
administration.

[hmmagain]

' ... bin Laden condacted congress today and threatened to force all u.s. folk to invest their funds in folk who make them pay for lunch, all their votes in folk who tax them at gunpoint, and all their market share into all but the most vulnerable: infants and toddlers ... '


' ... as long as we're buying high dollar folk promoting high dollar medicines and high dollar guns, pay 'em ... otherwise we're wasting our money on minimum wage kids dancing get well soon you are here why why why feed the world first aid on the trail songs, and that's just silly ... '

[delete91]

However, no country can survive with such sanctions. Their people are in such miserable conditions now, and it's only going to get worse. I hope a resolve will come for the sake of Gaza's people. Hamas needs to ditch the terror to stand out on the world stage. Fatah is smart by taking the high road. It's people will prosper. Diplomacy.

[delete91]

Hamas Got what they wanted

[hmmagain]

' ... why is it that evil people almost always run around screaming 'thwart evil or else'? ... '

' ... its the funniest thing, she keeps screaming she won't let up ... i keep screaming i know who will happen to you when you do ... '

[grazinggoat]

Where is that reply? You would not answer when asked if it the Jews and Palestinians should beget instead called it bigoted.You cannot answer on if Israel has a right to exist or the Jews have a right to exist? Still waiting
Posted by radiob

radiob,
-Let me answer this. I'll try.
radiob, what you're asking is quite hard to interprete. Jews first existed and still exist since the beginning of the Creation of Humans' religions as much as many other nations that came on Earth and disappered, as a 'major nation or grouping'. Jews have known how to resist elimination as a culture, but not really staying the same as they used to be before, they have transformed. Do we still see the killing of women who betray their husband as it is written in the religious books? I doubt it. A serious research of the Middle-East nations will guide you throughout an great array of Nations that have already existed (flourished) such as Arameans, Caldenians, Hittites, Poenicians etc... They all belonged to the same melting-pot of tribes or people belonging-to-lands, without a clear cut between beliefs and geographical belonging.
See Continued...