Senior Hamas official: We have lost faith in Abbas
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent 7 July 2005
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/596871.html

A senior Hamas official Wednesday threatened both open confrontation with
the Palestinian Authority and continued attacks on Israel from Gaza after
the disengagement, saying that Hamas had "lost faith" in Palestinian
Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).

In an interview with a local Gaza news agency, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior
Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said Hamas was not willing "to serve as a
fig leaf" for PA control of Gaza following the disengagement, would not give
up its weapons and was liable to continue bombarding Israel with mortars and
rockets from Gaza after the disengagement "in order to liberate the West
Bank and Jerusalem."

However, other senior Hamas officials moved quickly to try to moderate the
fears of civil war that Zahar's interview aroused among the Palestinian
public. Sheikh Hassan Yusuf, a senior Hamas leader from Ramallah, for
instance, published a statement saying that Zahar "exaggerated in describing
[Hamas'] differences of opinion with the Palestinian Authority and Abu
Mazen."

Zahar, who gave the interview as Abbas was in Damascus to try and reach an
agreement with Hamas' external leadership on various PA-Hamas disputes,
warned: "The Palestinian Authority and Fatah need to know that what they are
doing now is playing with fire. They will bear responsibility for ignoring
Hamas and the [other] factions and for their insistence on managing the
withdrawal alone. We will not serve as a fig leaf on this matter, nor will
we allow it [the PA] to steal the achievements of the street and Hamas - the
sacrifice of its [Hamas'] sons and its leadership to liberate the land of
Gaza - just so that this land will be distributed to some individual or
another."

He even hinted that Hamas would be willing to use force against the PA to
prevent it from running Gaza after Israel's withdrawal: "Just as we did not
accept the occupation of the land, we will not allow it to be allocated to
anyone who did not play a part in liberating it," he said, referring to the
PA. "The PA, which accuses itself day and night of corruption, cannot manage
the population. They will encounter a determined street if they try to
decide by themselves, and Hamas will never work with them."

Hamas will not join a unity government, as the PA has proposed, Zahar said.
It would agree to sit on a committee comprised of representatives of all the
Palestinian factions, which would manage Gaza jointly, but only if this
committee were not part of the PA. Moreover, "only those who liberated Gaza
should participate in such a committee, not other parties, who are now
trying to increase the number of people who want to share in the division of
the spoils," he said.

"Hamas will keep its weapons after the withdrawal, because they serve to
defend every centimeter of the homeland against Zionist aggression," Zahar
continued.

"Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem are one geographic unit, and Hamas will
not sit quietly in Gaza if it is attacked in the West Bank. Who will
guarantee that the occupation won't return to Gaza? And who will protect
Hamas members against the PA? The Preventive Security Service, which
arrested its members in the past? The mukhabarat [secret police], which is
gathering intelligence on it? We will not give our weapons to anyone, and we
will not enter the PA's jails."

Zahar also attacked Abbas personally, the first time Hamas has done so since
his election. Describing the PA chairman as "a man who can't be relied on,"
he charged that Abbas had broken numerous agreements with Hamas. "Hamas has
lost faith in him because he did not carry out what was agreed on with the
movement," Zahar said.

"We agreed on a `supreme national body' and this was not implemented," he
continued, referring to the idea that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would join the
PLO under new rules. "We agreed that our people would not be harmed by the
PA, and this was not implemented. The same is true of the continuation of
local elections, which are not being held, and of the parliamentary
elections. Even though there are written agreements, Fatah postponed [the
elections] unilaterally, and now Abu Mazen is setting new dates and sending
us emissaries to get us to agree to them."

Zahar demanded both that a date for parliamentary elections be set and that
a new Central Elections Commission be formed to replace the current one, to
ensure that the elections are free of fraud.

"Relations between Fatah and Hamas are strained against the background of
its [Fatah's] verbal attacks on the organization," he said.