Karl Schembri
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday announced a new government headed by Western-backed Salam Fayyad, but with no Hamas ministers in it.
The announcement came in the wake of yet another failed round of talks about a unity government between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo, Egypt.
The new cabinet was sworn in at the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in Ramallah, but although it includes 10 Fatah members, the Fatah parliamentary bloc is boycotting the new administration charging that it was not consulted.
The inconclusive talks leave the new government in an extremely divided political atmosphere, with the rival factions unable to move beyond the impasse since Hamas violently took over the Gaza strip in June 2007.
Hamas, which does not recognise the new government, said yesterday that Abbas’s decision to go ahead with a new formation will entrench the internal divisions that had led Fayyad’s previous unity government to resign last March in a bid to give new breathing space for reconciliation talks.
“This government is illegal and we will not recognise it,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said from Gaza.
Agreement between Hamas and Fatah is crucial for aid and reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, which remains devastated by Israel’s war which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians. International donors refuse to pass funds to Hamas, insisting the PA has to administer the aid.
In his first comments after the swearing in, Fayyad said the new government’s priorities will be a continuation of the previous administration’s.
“We remain firmly convinced of resolving the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict on the two-state solution,” Fayyad said, adding that Netanyahu was trying to ignore “the most basic of requirements of the road map” by failing to refer to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in any way when he met US President Barack Obama in Washington earlier.
US-educated Fayyad, once referred to as “everyone’s favourite Palestinian” by influential Israeli daily Haaretz, will have four ministries including education and tourism headed by women.
Fayyad is a former World Bank and International Monetary Fund employee whose anti-corruption measures between 2002 and 2005 when he was finance minister won him international plaudits.
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