Abbas urges factions to endorse Palestinian unity program
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 5/25/2006

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today warned that he would "go to the people" if Palestinian political factions failed to adopt a political program contained in a document drafted by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

"We are running of time, and the Palestinian vehicle is stumbling. You have a few days to agree on this document and if you fail, I will hold a referendum and see what the people will say," Abbas said during a speech in Ramallah marking the preliminary session of a three-day National Dialogue.

Abbas reiterated the PLO goal of a viable Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a "just solution" of the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with UN resolution 1949.

Abbas criticized the American-led financial blockade on the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including American pressures on regional banks to refrain from transferring money donated by Arab and Muslim states to the Palestinian government.

"We are in a throttle and slogans don't fill the stomachs of our children," he said.

Abbas criticized "treating the Palestinian cause as a humanitarian cause. They (EU) said they would give humanitarian assistance to those working in the health field. Do they think that those working in other fields are non-humans? are infidels?" Abbas said "the Palestinians wouldn't allow others, including Israel and the Americans, to decide our future on our behalf." Earlier, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniya delivered a speech in Gaza, vowing to prevent the Palestinian society from sliding to civil war.

"I assure you that we will continue to be faithful to the blood of the martyrs and that we will not blight you with civil war among Palestinians. The essential contradiction is between us and our enemy, not among ourselves." Haniya said his government wouldn't give concessions to Israel at the expense of Palestinian national constants.

He castigated the United States for favoring democracy publicly but undermining and even trying to kill in reality.

Haniya, too, alluded to American pressure on Arab and regional banks to refrain from transferring aid money from abroad to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, adding that all Palestinians ought to be united in the face of this oppressive blockade.

He praised efforts to raise money and donation for the Palestinian government, saying it was the first time in history people raise money for the government.

Haniya pointed out there were two main political camps in Palestine, Fatah and Hamas, which he said possessed a glorious record of heroic struggle against the Israeli occupation.

"We are determined to keep the voice of reason the ultimate arbiter among us, we will try to consolidate the culture of national unity which is a religious ideology, political necessity and national inevitability," he said, reciting a Quranic verse exhorting for unity.

Haniya voiced bitterness at recent clashes between Fatah and Hamas and offered condolences to bereaved families, including the family of a Jordanian man killed by unknown gunmen in Gaza earlier this week.

He spoke repeatedly of the "sacredness and inviolability of the Palestinian blood," reminding Palestinians that the problem was with Israel, not among themselves.

He defended the recently-formed force, saying it was meant to fight lawlessness and chaos and uphold the rule of law, adding that the force would be incorporated into the Palestinian police forces very soon.

Prior to Haniya's speech, the Speaker of the Legislative Council, Aziz Duweik, delivered an impassionate speech, urging Palestinians not to shed their own blood with their hands.

"We are brothers, suffering the same pain, facing the same enemy.

It is unacceptable, it is a crime that we shed our own blood with our hands," he said.

Duweik said political differences, no matter how big, didn't justify inter-fighting.

Meantime, Amnesty International had just said in a report that "Israel used a wide range of judicial and extrajudicial means to punish Palestinians individually and collectively for killings of Israelis, Palestinian victims were denied justice and redress. Impunity remained the rule for Israeli forces who unlawfully killed and ill-treated Palestinians."

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