Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, stymied by a power struggle with Yasser Arafat, will tell parliament he will resign unless he wins authority to take key reform and peace steps, officials said.
Resignation threat #432
"Abbas will ask for support for his policies or he leaves," Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr told Reuters on Wednesday in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The moderate
(moderate? nice editorial comment in a news article...ok, it is Rooters)
premier will address parliament Thursday to report on his performance four months after President Arafat appointed him under international pressure to advance a "road map" plan for ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. "Abbas will reiterate that the cabinet must be fully empowered... especially in the security and administrative fields," Amr said. "He will clearly ask for backing of his policies based on the principle of one authority, respect for the rule of law, and rejection of illegal weapons," he added.
Abbas has no legal right to ask parliament for a vote of confidence, but aides said he would deem the general message conveyed by lawmakers in the debate as the verdict. Senior Palestinian lawmakers said they were working on a compromise deal to define powers held by Arafat and Abbas and ward off a resignation by the prime minister. They said Arafat did not want Abbas to go either for fear of an international outcry.
He just wants a castrated puppet for PR sake
The United States seized on Abbas as the reform-minded pragmatist needed to line up Palestinians behind a long-elusive two-state compromise to the Middle East conflict, and his demise could cripple peacemaking indefinitely, analysts say. Constant disputes with Arafat have bogged down Abbas’s campaign for reform, including a crackdown on militant factions, crucial to the U.S.-engineered "road map" plan for peace. It charts mutual confidence-building steps to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip alongside a secure Israel.
| Confidence building measures = Charlie Brown, kicking a football... |
Arafat, an elected president furious at U.S.-Israeli attempts to ostracize him over allegations he incites violence, which he denies, has denied Abbas powers to carry out security and financial reforms.
| "One man, one vote, one time..." |
Arafat has publicly endorsed the road map but refused to cede control to Abbas of security and intelligence organs seen as indispensable to subduing militants, whose Islamist leaders reject Israel’s right to exist and vow to destroy it. Officials say Arafat and Abbas, close comrades atop the Palestinian independence drive for decades, now hate each other. Prominent lawmaker Qadoura Faris said all 85 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council backed Abbas’s agenda but "what bothers us is the way he is administering his crisis with Arafat. This is a big problem and has caused lots of confusion." He said compromise proposals from some lawmakers could be presented during the session "and become resolutions that would be binding on both Arafat and Abu Mazen (Abbas). It would regulate relations between them."
| Wonder if Yasser would honor agreements with his fellow Paleos? My guess is "no"... |
Amr said that Abbas in his speech to parliament Thursday would not mention the power struggle but instead clearly ask for powers for himself in administrative and security fields. "Abbas will also reiterate that Arafat should remain in charge of political and negotiations affairs," he said. Arafat has been blocking Abbas to prove to the world he remained relevant, contrary to Israeli and U.S. assertions, and only he could deliver Palestinian compliance with the road map, according to Palestinian officials.
| And since he won't do it, we're stuck in sometime last year. |
They expected Arafat to use his sway on lawmakers in his mainstream Fatah faction, comprising the majority of parliament, to underline to Abbas who was boss in Thursday’s session. But they said Arafat would try to head off an Abbas resignation for fear of an enormous international backlash, particularly from old European and Arab allies who still deal with him, for undermining his prime minister.
From his Arab backers to his French ass-kissers |