Hamas assails threat to dismiss government
JERUSALEM -- Hamas angrily rejected a warning by the moderate Palestinian president yesterday that he could dismiss its month-old government, threatening to scrap a truce with Israel if he does.
The public warning heightened tensions between the Islamic militant group and President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fatah. Hamas defeated Fatah in January parliamentary elections. Abbas, elected separately, has been trying to trim the new Cabinet's powers.
In an interview broadcast yesterday on CNN-Turk, Abbas said Hamas must recognize Israel and talk peace to avert an economic catastrophe because of Western sanctions.
Abbas favors peace talks, but Hamas rejects the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. Hamas also refuses to renounce violence or accept interim Palestinian-Israeli peace accords -- basic international demands.
The extreme Hamas stance has harmed the Palestinians' world standing. More critically, it has led to a cutback in vital foreign aid, leaving Hamas unable to pay 165,000 public workers, the largest sector in the limping Palestinian economy, including about 80,000 in the security forces, many loyal to Fatah.
The current paychecks are already three weeks late, and next week another monthly salary is due, with no relief in sight, reinforcing Abbas's warning.
''The constitution gives me clear and definite authority to remove a government from power, but I don't want to use this authority. Everyone should know that by law this power is in my hands," Abbas said in the interview with CNN-Turk, recorded before he arrived in Turkey on Sunday.
Hamas reacted angrily, threatening to call off a 15-month truce brokered by Abbas that greatly reduced Israeli-Palestinian violence after five years of bloodshed.
A senior Hamas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the group would ''not leave in silence."
''We will not participate in any new election and we will go underground as we did before and we will not adhere to any commitments, any truce, by anyone," he said.
An Israeli government spokesman, Raanan Gissin, dismissed the Hamas threat, saying the militant group had never recognized the truce.
A spokesman for the Hamas-led government, Ghazi Hamad, said Abbas should not have warned Hamas he could disband the government, sworn in on March 29, so early in its tenure.
''We expect from President Abbas to protect his government and not to make such declarations," Hamad said in an interview from Gaza City.
The West, which provides the Palestinians with roughly $1 billion in annual aid, has cut off some of that funding to protest Hamas's refusal to moderate. Palestinian officials say US pressure on international banks has kept Arab governments' money from reaching the Hamas government.
Israel has also squeezed the Palestinians financially by withholding monthly transfers of some $55 million in taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. 