JERUSALEM, March 23 (UPI) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was sitting with Israeli journalists Wednesday when an aide brought in a note. Hamas militants had just attacked the home of a Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades commander in the Gaza Strip and killed two people, it said. The casualty toll rose Thursday when a 2-year-old boy died of his wounds.
Fears that clashes between the nationalist Fatah and the Islamic Hamas would deteriorate to civil war prompted Palestinian leaders to go to Mecca and with Saudi prodding agree to form the national unity government. It was sworn in last Saturday following an overwhelming vote of confidence -- 83 Legislative Council members to three.
However, the tensions have not ended. Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said "a list of controversial issues still remains." These include the future of Hamas' Executive Force, control over other security forces and integrating Hamas into the Palestine Liberation Organization. Friction over these issues "may lead to political tensions and even a renewal of the violence," the report predicted.
Palestinians responding to a public-opinion poll by the Ramallah-based survey group NEC sensed as much.
Questioned whether the crisis between Fatah and Hamas would end, 31 percent of those surveyed said yes, while 69 percent said no.
The new government, headed by Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh, aroused optimism but little enthusiasm, wrote former minister Ghassan Khatib, who is now vice president of Birzeit University in the West Bank. There was hope "the government will maintain internal calm and adhere to the ceasefire between Fatah and Hamas," Khatib wrote.
"The lack of popular enthusiasm, meanwhile, is a result of the very low expectation that the new government can do much to improve the economic, social and political difficulties people have faced in the last seven years," he added on bitterlemons.org.
The Hamas ministers had served in the last Cabinet and failed, while the Fatah ministers "have been chosen from the lesser-known ranks of the party and are not seen as the strongest candidates," he noted.
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report noted that the Hamas ministers, except Haniyeh, are technocrats. "Some of them (are) previously political unknowns, while Fatah ministers are old political hands," it said. The prominent ministers are three independents, it noted.
The foreign minister is Ziad Abu Amr, who earned his Ph.D. in political science and international relations from Georgetown University in Washington. The finance minister is Salam Fayyad, who has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas and served in previous governments where he succeeded in somewhat stabilizing the Palestinian Authority's budget and advanced important reforms; the interior minister, who is responsible for security forces, is Hani Talab al-Qawasmi, a former director of administrative affairs in that ministry who has no experience in internal security. However, Mohammad Dahlan, a Gaza strongman who headed the Preventive Security there, is Abbas' national security adviser.
The need to end chaos and restore security has been uppermost in Palestinian minds, according to the NEC survey. Sixty percent of the respondents said that should be the government's No. 1 priority.
Fewer respondents talked of law enforcement, reviving the economy, improving relations with other countries and making peace with Israel. However, reviving the economy depends on coming to terms with Israel.
The international peace Quartet, comprising the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, Wednesday "reaffirmed" the Palestinian government must be "committed to nonviolence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the road map," or the internationally devised peace plan.
Abbas readily acknowledged the Palestinian government has not accepted those demands. "We compromised. Whoever says the compromise is not a positive step, misunderstands reality," he argued.
For Abbas, the important thing was that Hamas undertook to respect the agreements the PLO signed with Israel and the Saudi peace initiative. That initiative, which the Arab League endorsed with some modifications, offers Israel peace and normalization with all Arab states if it withdraws to the pre-1967 war lines and reaches an agreement on resolving the refugee problem.
Abbas complained the Israelis were making a fuss over the fact the new government said it would "respect" previous agreements rather than commit itself to abide by them. "Respecting is more important," he said.
In outlining the government's program, Haniyeh talked of establishing an independent Palestinian state "on the territories that were occupied in 1967." That means a state beside -- not instead -- of Israel. Abbas has been authorized to negotiate with Israel.
However, the government maintained, "Resistance in all its forms ... is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people."
That, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center analysis said, legitimized "the continuation of all forms of terrorism against Israel (including suicide bombing attacks within Israel). ... That is in full accord with Hamas' basic preference for terrorism, although it does not reject a temporary lull in the fighting."
Moreover, in talking of a Palestinian state on the lands conquered in 1967, the program "does not state that the establishment of such a state is the final Palestinian demand. A Palestinian or Muslim Arab reader will understand that the arrangement is only temporary," the analysis said.
For the time being there is no Quartet decision to resume aid to the Palestinian government, though large sums are channeled through Abbas. Israel is still holding on to taxes and customs it levied on the Palestinian Authority's behalf, and Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouthi said that amounts to $500 million.
And yet, the boycott of that government is cracking, and there are renewed efforts to advance a peace process.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are due in the coming days and are scheduled to meet Abbas.
Professor Ali Jarbawi of Birzeit University's political science department noted on bitterlemons.org that the United States' Arab allies have underscored the "necessity to resolve the Palestinian issue" and that "the existence of a Palestinian national unity government and internal Palestinian harmony reinforces and strengthens this trend."
