LONDON, Jan 31: The United States and Europe agreed to keep financing the Palestinians for now, but election victors Hamas reacted angrily on Tuesday to a demand they give up violence and recognise Israel.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal derided US and European threats to put financial pressure on his Islamist group as being ‘in vain’, saying they amounted to forcing it to abandon its struggle for freedom.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her partners in the Quartet for Middle East peace — the United Nations, Russia and the European Union — pledged in London on Monday to keep money flowing into Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas’s interim caretaker administration.

“We do believe that Abu Mazen needs to be supported,” said Ms Rice, using Mr Abbas’s nom de guerre, ensuring that funds will be available to pay for Palestinian police officials and civil servants.

But the Quartet warned that the Palestinians’ critical lifeline of foreign aid could be cut off unless Hamas ‘abandons violence’, recognises Israel and embraces the ‘roadmap’ to peace.

That blueprint to peace envisions an independent Palestinian nation existing side by side with the Jewish state.

The EU has given about 500 million euros (613 million dollars) annually to the Palestinians since 2003, but the decisive win by Hamas has left the bloc in a quandary because the group figures on both US and EU terrorist blacklists.

In a statement issued in the middle of the night, the Quartet said it believed ‘that the Palestinian people have the right to expect that a new government will address their aspirations for peace and statehood’.

But the statement stressed that ‘future assistance to any future government would be reviewed by donors against the government’s commitment to the principles of non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the roadmap’.

With three months likely to pass before a new Palestinian government is formed, the Quartet’s stance amounts to a watch period for Hamas to change its stripes if it wants to be accepted as a serious partner in the peace process.

The Hamas swiftly rejected the Quartet’s demands.

“The conditions posed by the Quartet constitute pressure which serves the interests of Israel and not the Palestinian people,” MP and spokesman Mosheer al Masri said.

Al Masri added that if the international aid continued to flow ‘the next (Hamas) government will ensure that it is used according to the law and not allow corruption’.

In an opinion piece in the Guardian newspaper published on Tuesday, Hamas supreme leader Meshaal said the West was punishing the Palestinian people for resisting oppression and striving for justice by taking such a hard line.

“The day Hamas won the Palestinian democratic elections the world’s leading democracies failed the test of democracy,” Mr Meshaal wrote.

The West is missing a chance to open a ‘new chapter’ in its relations with the Palestinians, Arabs and other Muslims, he wrote.

“Our message to the US and EU governments is this: your attempt to force us to give up our principles or our struggle is in vain.”

A senior Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, appealed to the Quartet to meet the radical organisation for ‘a dialogue without preliminary conditions and in a spirit of neutrality’.

Israel has declared that it will freeze funds to the Palestinian Authority, fearing the money could end up being used to attack and kill Israeli citizens.

Two million shekels (35 million dollars) — drawn mainly through sales tax revenues and customs duties on Palestinian-bound goods passing through Israel — were due to be handed over to the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday.

Pressed on how long the European Union — a major contributor to Palestinian coffers — would be prepared to give Hamas, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: “I think that it will depend how long it takes in time for the formation of the government.”

He referred to estimates of three months.

“That is the time in which they have to clarify all these things. If we have not got any sign that they move in that direction it will be very difficult,” Mr Solana said. —AFP