Prime Minister Haniyeh: Stop Bloodshed, Do Not Play Into the Hands of External Forces By Kristen Ess

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Prime Minister Haniyeh: Stop Bloodshed, Do Not Play Into the Hands of External Forces

Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, addressed the Palestinian people Tuesday night, stressing the need to “maintain unity at home and abroad.” He said that national dialogue is the “master of the situation” and that “we must not resort to arms.” The Prime Minister urged all factions to exercise restraint and calm, and to help “ease tension and resentment we must end armed rallies.”

President Abbas says similar things when he addresses the public, as do most people and leaders, although the calls go largely unheeded because the underlying issues are most complex, and all the while external forces are manipulating the situation of a desperate public who, by now, is having a more difficult time seeing the forest for the trees.

Prime Minister Haniya spoke in Gaza City for over an hour and a half last night, doing what he could with words to decrease the chaos seen in the streets as members of Fateh and Hamas “turn their resistance weapons intended for the legitimate and internationally legal resistance to Israeli occupation on each other.”

The Prime Minister said that the “focal point that is necessary to respect is the election results and how to handle them when they come.” President Abbas of Fateh called for early elections, in part because the US will not lift the economic and political blockade until Hamas is out of office, and because talks for a unity government failed as Hamas would not cede points mandated by some in the international community and Fateh was doing the external bidding in some regards. And certainly, not least in the list of “why early elections,” Fateh will be back on top, where it had been for 10 years. Yasser Abed Rabbo said they needed three months to prepare themselves. And the first time the elections were to be held in the summer of 2005, Fateh postponed them and it was largely known they did this because they were not certain of a victory. And when Hamas was victorious in January 2006, it looked to journalists covering the scene around the clock that even Hamas was surprised. But since then the already devastated situation has gone downhill.

Haniyeh did take a moment in his speech to convey what is obvious to so many; that this internal chaos is not limited to internal forces, that armed fighting amongst Palestinians is not fomented by local Palestinian factions alone and are in a great many instances, reactionary, and that the spiral into civil-war like conditions are also the workings of external forces who have proven themselves, and publicly admitted to being, enemies of the Palestinians, including Israel, the occupier, and the United States, the moral and financial supporters of the occupation.

The US called for democracy as if the Palestinian population did not always hold highly fair, transparent and democratic elections in all sectors, (see 1996, 2004 and 2006) but the US did not approve of the democratic choice. Therefore the US imposed an economic and political blockade. And now the Israeli Prime Minister says he must support President Abbas. The Israeli Prime Minister has never supported President Abbas, refusing to meet with him and referring to him as being the “no negotiating partner” as was the late President Arafat before him. The Israeli Prime Minister is not about to reach an equal negotiating table, but many fear what will happen at one, what sort of concessions the Palestinian Fateh leadership will make. The Israeli Prime Minister's ploy of support for the “the moderates, including President Abbas” is for the media. The take-over of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque are ongoing, as are invasions, incursions, kidnappings and assassinations. And the Israeli government stopped paying the taxes it owes and therefore we are unable to fully pay public sector employees. Many say the tactic is to starve us until we concede. But if the final concession is to leave our historic Palestine, that will never happen.” Haniyeh also spoke to the existence of many “internal enemies who have their own agenda and are also sowing chaos, unrest, and distrust.”

Hamas has also stressed the need to reform the Palestine Liberation Organization and pointed out that “there are American pressures exerted on some figures and forces to not participate in the Palestinian government, but we have said repeatedly that the door will remain open to all Palestinian factions wishing to participate in a government that has lived through the economic siege and political isolation” since the first moment this government was formed.

Accusations of corruption come from both parties, and in both Hamas and Fateh episodes of nepotism and corruption are easy to find, but the democratic choice at the polls this year was Hamas, and many of those who voted for them said at that the time that they did so because they were looking for a change from the status-quo of corruption in Fateh. But the Hamas member Prime Minister is still holding out hope for a government of national unity, as is President Abbas.

During Prime Minister Haniyeh's Gaza City speech he said that “with a basis of national consensus we can solve any problem, and we will with a government of national unity be able to face the embargo united.”

He also called for a “return of any abductees taken from among the Hamas and Fateh members. Give back your brothers if you have taken any hostages. This is not the way.”

The Minster of Interior, Hamas member Said Siyam, is conducting an emergency meeting with security services in a joint step to contain the armed rallies. And the first objective for security is to find the killers of the three children. I do not mind if the security services join operations.” Hamas' Executive Forces, set-up by Siyam, have been on one side of the fighting, while the other side is Fateh's Presidential Guard and Palestinian Authority security branches.

The Prime Minister rallied, “I call upon the Palestinian people to reach a comprehensive national reconciliation everywhere. I was prepared on behalf of the government that if there was bloodshed to pay the relatives of victims,” at least as some kind of compensation although the spilling of our own blood with our own hands is unforgivable.

Prime Minister Haniya said more Tuesday night, but of import was his commitment to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, his admission that the Qatari Initiative failed due to President Abbas, and his reminder that he was willing to give up his position as Prime Minister for the greater good, as he did within moments of the beginning the discussion of new ministerial appointments in a unity government. The President rejected the first choice who was a Hamas member, and then rejected the independent who was chosen next. The Hamas government has had literally nothing to work with since it won the elections and then took office, but this was not the fault of President Abbas. This falls squarely in the lap of the United States, more destructive than even the Israeli occupation has been this year. Prime Minister Haniya and President Abbas may say similar words during public speeches, (just reverse the party), but what the Hamas government has undergone since it took office is unprecedented in impossibility, even under Israeli occupation.