A rchive Date
[ 30-04-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Palestine ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/03/23/48967-ap.html
Palestinian Parliament approves prime minister; 3 die in Tel Aviv bombing
Announce formation of new Palestinian cabinet
By KARIN LAUB
Tue, April 29, 2003
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - The Palestinian Parliament approved a new prime minister Tuesday, removing the last remaining obstacle for the launch of a U.S.-backed peace plan. But the historic event was followed within 12 hours by a suicide attack on a Tel Aviv bar that killed three people.
The bomb blew the front off the seafront bar and demolished walls, doors and furniture inside, police said. A witness told Israeli army radio that a security guard at the bar prevented the bomber from entering. The dead included the bomber. It was the 89th suicide attack in 2½ years of fighting.
The nightspot features live music and stands on a promenade that runs for several kilometres along the Tel Aviv beach. The U.S. Embassy is nearby, but was not damaged and was apparently not a target. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but before the bombing, the Islamic militant movement Hamas warned it had no intention of disarming or ending attacks on Israelis. Abdel Aziz Rantisi said his group would "never drop its weapons and will not allow anyone to disarm it."
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck said the peace process would move forward despite the violence. "This despicable attack was undertaken by those opposed to the restoration of dialogue and the peaceful pursuit of a comprehensive peace in the region," she said in Washington.
The Palestinian legislature's approval of Mahmoud Abbas as prime minister fulfilled the last condition for launching the "road map," a plan that holds the first real hope of ending 2½ years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting and renewing peace talks. The confirmation was approved 51-18, with three abstentions.
But even as the legislators gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah to confirm Abbas' cabinet, Israeli troops killed three militants and a bystander.
In his inaugural speech, Abbas pledged to disarm militias, a promise that could set up a violent showdown between the Palestinian Authority and militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The United States welcomed the approval of a new Palestinian leadership as a spur to peacemaking. "The president looks forward to working with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people as well as the Israeli government and the Israeli people to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
A senior U.S. State Department official said after the vote that the road map to Palestinian statehood would be unveiled soon, and a mediator said it could come by Thursday.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Secretary of State Colin Powell will go to the area to begin trying to advance Palestinian statehood once the newly confirmed cabinet begins its work.
In his first speech to Parliament, Abbas stuck to traditional Palestinian positions toward Israel, but warned his people that "the unauthorized possession of weapons . . . is a major concern that will be relentlessly addressed."
There would be "one authority, one law," he said. But the task facing the 68-year-old Abbas, who despite a long career has little experience in the power politics of day-to-day government, appears overwhelming.
He'll have to keep at bay not just the Islamic militants but Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who remains popular and retains some powers, including control of some security organizations.
The United States and Israel are eager to do business with Abbas, an outspoken opponent of violence. But the international support has hurt Abbas at home, with many Palestinians considering him a U.S. puppet.
The first stage of the road map calls for a ceasefire, a crackdown on Palestinian militias, an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian towns and the dismantling of Jewish settlements built since 2001. A Palestinian state with provisional borders could be established by year's end and full statehood within three years, according to the timetable.
In his speech, Abbas affirmed his acceptance of the road map, but rejected changes demanded by Israel, saying: "The road map must be implemented, not negotiated."
Israel says Palestinians must stop all violence before it makes any peace moves. Some opponents of the new government expressed concerns that a crackdown on militants might lead to civil war. Others feared that Abbas would make too many concessions to Israel.
Abbas, who favours suits and ties in contrast to Arafat's military dress, sat next to the Palestinian leader on a dais, facing a packed reception hall in Arafat's West Bank headquarters. He said the Palestinians "will not accept anything less" than a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, and a dismantling of all Jewish settlements.
For the four million Palestinian refugees and their descendants there should be a "fair and acceptable" solution, he said, but did not repeat standard Palestinian insistance on their right to reclaim land and homes they lost when Israel became a state in 1948.
In perhaps the strongest denunciation of terrorism by a senior Palestinian official, Abbas said: "We are convinced that such methods do not lend support to a just cause like ours, but rather destroy it." Arafat has condemned attacks on Israelis, but in ambiguous fashion, and Israel has accused him of encouraging, and even financing, attacks.
Addressing the Israelis, Abbas took a rarely heard conciliatory tone: "We do not ignore the suffering of the Jews throughout history." His aides said he added the sentence to the speech - delivered on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day - because he felt stung by accusations that in his doctoral thesis in the 1970s, he diminished the scope of the Nazi genocide.
Israel said it would judge Abbas by his actions. "Any Palestinian government and any prime minister will be judged by two criteria - the extent to which he will execute the most urgent, necessary reforms in government and the extent to which he's going to perform the necessary steps to stop terrorism," said Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Gissin said Sharon was ready, in principle, to invite Abbas for talks in Jerusalem. The two have met repeatedly in the past.
http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoSun/editorial.html
SINCE THE liberation of Iraq, I have seen little that suggests these people are ready for democracy. With the looting and fighting among themselves, is it really possible for these people to live in a free society? Do they have enough self-control to live in peace with their religious counterparts, without the fear of Saddam's vengeance? In North America, it has taken over 300 years to get the kind of democracy we have now. The people of Iraq have been there for nearly 7,000 years and have not budged. So it is probably going to be generations before they will have any kind of a real working democracy. Anyone who thinks democracy is going to just drop into place is living in a fantasy world.
Jeremy Wakefield (Miss. Ont)
(Freedom is a delicate thing that needs much tending before it can flower)
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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