March 19, 2007	Monday	Safar 29, 1428

GAZA CITY, March 18: The new Palestinian coalition cabinet met for the first time on Sunday, buoyed by chinks appearing in the year-long Western boycott of its Islamist-dominated predecessor.

Israel urged Western powers to stand by the punishing aid freeze they imposed last March, but its leading sympathisers Britain and the United States both said they would not rule out dealing with non-Islamist members of the new cabinet.

Oil-rich European aid donor Norway went further, saying it would fully recognise the new national unity administration which brings together the Islamists of Hamas and the secular Fatah faction of president Mahmud Abbas, as well as independents.

France invited the new foreign minister Ziad Abu Amr to Paris for talks in a move the independent technocrat hailed as the beginning of the end of the European aid boycott that has left the Palestinian economy reeling.

“The walls of isolation and the aid embargo are cracking,” Abu Amr told Israel's Ynet news website.

But he hit out at the increasingly beleaguered Israeli government's continuing refusal to deal with his broad-based cabinet.

“At a time when we are accepting a large part of the international demands and are adopting a moderate political platform, the Israeli government continues to be blindly stubborn,” the US-educated diplomat said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose approval ratings at home have collapsed to just a few per cent, complained that the new government's programme fell short of previous Western demands for a commitment to non-violence and recognition of the Jewish state's right to exist.

He said Israel would maintain contacts with the moderate Palestinian president, but warned that dealings with Abbas would be limited to humanitarian matters following his power-sharing deal with Hamas, which claimed responsibility for scores of suicide attacks in Israel before a 2004 truce.

“The government platform includes some extremely problematic elements which can't be accepted by Israel or the international community,” Olmert told a weekly cabinet meeting which endorsed his continuing rejection of dealings with the new Palestinian government.

Washington also expressed disappointment with the programme set out by prime minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas, but made clear that this would not stop it dealing with secular or independent ministers in the new line-up.

“The speech was disappointing and inconsistent with the Quartet principles, as well as a missed opportunity to affirm the national unity government's adherence to the foundational principles for peace,” US State Department spokeswoman Nancy Bell said.

The so-called Quartet of major players in the peace process -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- was the original forum for the demands on the Palestinian government to renounce violence and recognise Israel and past peace deals, although Russia has since distanced itself.

The new independent spokesman for the Palestinian government, Mustafa Barghuti, hit out at the US and Israeli positions, accusing them of seeking a pretext to avoid a renewed push for peace.

“The unity government extended a hand of peace but Israel refuses to listen,” he complained. “Israel doesn't want to deal with anyone.” Barghuti said the coming days would see a flurry of diplomatic activity by Palestinian ministers seeking to end the devastating boycott slapped on the Palestinian Authority when Hamas took power after its upset 2006 parliamentary election over the president's Fatah movement.

Internationally respected finance minister Salam Fayyad warned the new government was doomed to failure if the Western embargo is not lifted.—AFP