Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Monday he would delay upcoming parliamentary elections if Israel bars Jerusalem Arabs from voting. This is the first time that Abbas has indicated he would postpone the January 25 vote.
We all agree that Jerusalem should be included in the elections, in the same way as in the past, Abbas said.
In the past, Jerusalem residents voted in a virtual absentee ballot system, because Israel says interim peace accords ban such political activity in Jerusalem.
With Fatah increasingly in disarray, the party's powerful central committee met late Sunday to discuss the party's election prospects. After the gathering, members sent a letter to Abbas citing the declining security situation in Gaza and Israel's threat to prevent Jerusalem's Arabs from voting, and demanded that the election be postponed, Abbas Zaki, a committee member, said.
Jerusalem for us is a major issue. We can't accept excluding it from our national elections, Zaki said.
However, Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath, head of the movement's election campaign, responded, We can't say that because we have fears about the election that we want to delay it. We must work from now to strengthen Fatah to achieve success in the upcoming elections.
On Monday, Hamas published an official statement demanding that: the excuse of the security situation and anarchy in the Palestinian Authority not be used to postpone the elections.
Police broke up a political gathering of Fatah supporters in Jerusalem Monday, but made no arrests, police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.
There was a political meeting at the Christmas Hotel. As such things are forbidden by law, we asked those present to leave, which they did, he said.
Israeli officials say they oppose allowing voting in Jerusalem, which would appear as a step to legitimize Hamas. However, they also do not want to be blamed for sabotaging the election and are said to be seeking a compromise.
In contrast to the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas does not run under its own name in Jerusalem, where its candidates are classified as independents, out of concern that they might be arrested and charged with breaking Israeli law.
Abbas, who has been on a tour of the Gulf states since the end of last week, also said that the truce the Palestinian factions agreed to in Cairo last March is not limited to the end of 2005, as some of the factions have declared, but was attained in order to provide a calm atmosphere for the elections.
Israel must not be given an excuse to ruin the planned elections, he said.
Abbas is also expected to meet in Qatar with Khaled Meshal, head of the political bureau of Hamas, which has demanded that the elections be held on time. Palestinian sources said Abbas was seeking a compromise with Hamas on a postponment.
Talks of a delay come amid a rash of chaos in the Gaza Strip, including a brief armed takeover by some 200 Palestinian police of several government buildings in Rafah Monday. They shot into the air and chased a number of Palestinian government officials out of the offices.
The ostensible reason for the violence was an incident last Friday in which a Palestinian policeman was shot dead in the Sajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza city by a family allegedly involved in drugs. The police were demanding that the PA exert its authority and protect the police.
The commander of the Palestinian police in Gaza and the West Bank, Ala Hosni, who called the police actions a