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=> Hamas and Rice
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Posted by
Maggie
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- Thursday, January 26 2006, 19:57:03 (CET) from 69.225.64.160 - adsl-69-225-64-160.dsl.skt2ca.pacbell.net  Network -  Windows XP -  Internet ExplorerWebsite: Website title: |
Hamas Wins Landslide 76 Seats RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Islamic militant Hamas won a landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections, winning 76 seats in the 132-member legislature, election officials said Thursday. The rival Fatah Party, which controlled Palestinian politics for four decades, won 43 seats. Hamas supporters raised their flag over the Palestinian parliament and rushed into the building amid clashes with Fatah loyalists a day after winning parliamentary elections. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will have no contacts with Hamas unless it backs peace with Israel, U.S. President George W. Bush said on Thursday, as he outlined a stance that could keep Washington on the sidelines of Middle East diplomacy after Hamas' big Palestinian election victory. Bush also urged President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Cabinet resigned after his Fatah party lost to the anti-Israel group, to stay in office so that the United States could keep open a diplomatic channel with the Palestinian government. "I have made it very clear, however, that a political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of a platform is a party with which we will not deal," Bush told a White House news conference, referring to Hamas. Washington considers Hamas a terrorist group. Bush, who has made promoting democracy in the Middle East a goal of his second term, had pressed Abbas to hold Wednesday's parliamentary election despite polls showing Hamas would do well. Hamas's victory over the long-dominant Fatah could bury any hope of reviving peace talks with Israel soon and stop Bush from achieving his goal of brokering a settlement that creates two states within the next few years. Bush said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Abbas to ask him to stay on and that she was speaking to her counterparts in a brokering group of major international powers to craft a joint response. With the U.S. able to cut off aid and lobby other top donors to do the same, Rice urged Hamas to drop its ideology and choose peace with Israel. "You can't have a peace process if you're not committed to the right of your partner to exist," Rice told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, speaking by videolink. "And I think you will hear the international community speak clearly on exactly those principles over the next day. There will be some difficult choices before those in whom the Palestinian people are placing their trust." David Makovsky, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that although Bush pushed for elections, he had failed to bolster democratic institutions that could have helped Abbas' standing. He doubted the Palestinian leader could stay in power long. "There's going to be some soul-searching in Washington, if the United States pushed things over the cliff by forcing elections," he said. But with Palestinians relying heavily on foreign assistance, the United States could persuade the West to leverage its aid to make Hamas ease its opposition to talks over a settlement with Israel. "Hamas is an ideological movement and is not likely to change easily," he added. "But a united international front could force it to change." --------------------- |
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