Palestinian president halts talks with Hamas, demands more concessions

The Little Dictator Will Probably Form an Usraeli-Dictated "Emergency Government."











"U.S. demands that a new Palestinian government recognize Israel have forced moderate President Mahmoud Abbas and the militant group Hamas to delay talks on forming a coalition, Palestinian officials said Sunday.

"What's the point of forming a government if this government is saying that it won't recognize agreements signed with Israel," Palestinian lawmaker Saeb Erekat, an Abbas confidant, told The Associated Press. "The whole point is to break the deadlock in the peace process and bring an end to the siege." "We expect any government to accept the Quartet principles," said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, a spokeswoman at the consulate in Jerusalem.

U.S. Consul-General Jacob Walles told Abbas Saturday that the new government would be unacceptable unless these conditions are met, officials said. "America was not very happy, Europe was not so happy. Nobody was happy, but Abbas was doing his best to convince them," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, an Abbas aide. "Hamas has undermined his efforts." Abbas will try to convince Bush that the alternative to a Fatah-Hamas government is civil war and ask him to soften the demands to allow Hamas to sign on to a coalition, officials said.

Although Hamas-Fatah talks will continue, Erekat and Abed Rabbo both questioned whether it would be possible in the end for the sides to bridge their differences and establish a joint government.

"I don't know if the deal is aborted. We will see in the near future," Abed Rabbo said."

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MY PREDICTION:

The government of "national unity" is dead in the water. Abbas' cheerleaders Abed Rabbo and Erekat are already writing its obituary. The story on which I commented on Thursday has proved to be true; namely the Hamas government was dissolved without forming a new government to replace it. The fact that no one has noticed the effects of the resulting government "vacuum" says loads about the irrelevance and impotence of the PA and any "government" based on the Oslo agreements.

My prediction is that during the coming week, the stooge-in-chief Abbas will receive his marching orders from Usrael, delivered to him by the Princess of Darkness herself who received her orders from Livni. The orders will instruct him to form an "emergency government" and to use his recently expanded and armed "presidential guard" to militarily crack down and to confront Hamas. The irony is that Abbas who "will try to convince Bush that the alternative to a Fatah-Hamas government is civil war" will be instructed to start precisely such a civil war. And why not? Isn’t Usrael behind the raging civil war in Iraq? Hasn't Usrael been laying the foundation of and accelerating the process for a civil war in Lebanon? Why not in Palestine? Welcome to "creative destruction" from the Nile to the Euphrates.

Tony Sayegh