Abbas tells lawmakers to back him or sack him ( 2003-09-05 09:06) (Agencies)
Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, struggling to win
more power from Yasser Arafat and push a U.S.-backed plan for peace with Israel,
called on Palestinian lawmakers on Thursday to back him or sack him.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas
(L) arrives at the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah Sept 4, 2003. Abbas,
struggling to win more power from President Yasser Arafat and push a
U.S.-backed plan for peace with Israel, called on Palestinian lawmakers to
back him or sack
him. [Reuters]
Pledging his commitment to salvage the battered Middle East "road map," Abbas
sought new security powers he sees as vital to diplomacy but which the
Palestinian president has been reluctant to give him, officials said.
Abbas, 68, appointed by Arafat in April under international pressure but
lacking his rival's grass-roots popularity, stopped short of asking for a vote
of confidence.
But as Arafat supporters staged anti-Abbas protests in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, parliamentary speaker Ahmed Korei said 15 out of the 85 lawmakers had
filed a petition asking for such a vote. There was no immediate decision on the
request.
Abbas's removal by parliament, which is dominated by Arafat loyalists, could
doom the U.S.-brokered road map already under threat from fresh bloodshed and
the cancellation of a cease-fire by Islamic militants.
Washington urged steadfastness. "There is really no alternative to the road
map. Beyond the road map is the cliff," State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher said.
He also blamed the Palestinians for the peace deadlock.
"I don't want to sugarcoat this," he told a daily briefing in Washington.
"The main problem now is terrorism and violence and the Palestinian Authority
needs to take hold of that problem if we are to move forward."
At the United Nations, former U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, who served
in both the Clinton and previous Bush administrations, said Abbas was likely to
leave office if there was no new diplomatic bid in the region to spur peace
efforts.
COULD LOSE ABBAS
Without such intervention, "at some point I believe, we'll probably lose the
current Palestinian prime minister," said Ross, now the director of the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told a special lecture series.
Throwing down a gauntlet to the Palestinian lawmakers, Abbas said
power-sharing problems needed to be addressed urgently and he was ready to leave
office if he did not get his way.
"Either provide the possibility of strong support for carrying out (the
mandate) or you can take it back," Abbas said in a speech to the Palestinian
Legislative Council while dozens of demonstrators stood outside chanting slogans
against him.
In an apparent bid to defuse the crisis, lawmakers voted to hold a
closed-door session on Saturday to hear Abbas's account of his dispute with
Arafat.
Speaking in even tones, Abbas blamed Israel for a lack of progress in peace
moves and said the United States had done too little to restrain the Israeli
army. "We...reiterate that we will continue our efforts to restore calm," he
said.
The power struggle between Abbas and Arafat has centerd on Abbas's demand,
backed by the United States, for control over the security forces who are
crucial for reining in militants as required by the road map.
Arafat has retained authority over most security services, drawing U.S. and
Israeli accusations that he is trying to undermine his reform-minded prime
minister.
But a leaflet distributed by Fatah's Ramallah branch accused Abbas's
administration of acting like a U.S. and Israeli puppet and called for its
removal.
ATTACKED BY ISRAEL
He was equally assailed by Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
said in a television interview the Palestinian prime minister was "showing
weakness and, perhaps, a survival instinct over statesmanly courage."
Underlining Abbas's woes, a militant group affiliated with the Fatah faction,
in which both he and Arafat hold leadership roles, claimed joint responsibility
with other groups for a West Bank ambush just before parliament met.
An Israeli army spokesman said Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a patrol
carrying out arrests in the West Bank town of Jenin, killing a soldier.
Abbas said he would seek a return to implementation of the road map, which
outlines reciprocal steps to end almost three years of violence since the
Palestinians began an uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip.
"I tell you frankly that our serious attempts to arrange a mechanism to
revive the political path with the Israelis did not get a sufficient response,"
Abbas said.
Israel blames the violence on the Palestinians.
Abbas said a "quartet" of peacemakers -- the United States, Russia, the
United Nations and the European Union -- should work harder to salvage the road
map, which outlines steps to create a Palestinian state in 2005. He also called
for an end to Washington's isolation of Arafat.
