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RAMALLAH, Sept 27: Leaders of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement on Saturday approved a new cabinet in a step toward ending political turmoil that has helped stall a US-backed plan for peace with Israel.
Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qorei now meets the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive, led by Mr Arafat, to finalize his cabinet list before submitting it to parliament for approval, expected in the coming week.
Fatah officials said Mr Qorei had appointed Nasser Youssef, an Arafat loyalist, as interior minister, replacing the U.S.-backed Mohammed Dahlan. They said Youssef would be “empowered” to impose security to end what outgoing Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas had bemoaned as the “armed chaos” of militant factions.
But given Mr Qorei and Youssef’s pedigree as longtime Arafat allies, the United States — which joined Israel in trying to sideline the Palestinian president — has voiced doubt about the new administration’s leeway to succeed where Abbas failed.
Abbas pledged to rein in armed factions and democratise governance to advance the peace plan. But he resigned over what he called obstruction by Arafat — who denies charges of fomenting violence — and continued Israel army strikes against militants.
At least two key members of the outgoing cabinet favoured by Washington — Finance Minister Salam Fayyad and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath — kept their posts in a preliminary list of 23 members of the new government, officials said.
There were almost a dozen new faces, including a supporter of main Islamist militant group Hamas and two from leftist secular factions with reservations about peacemaking with Israel.
Qurie tried to lure actual officials from Hamas and militant ally Islamic Jihad into the cabinet to maximise its popular backing, but they spurned him in favour of a continued struggle against Israel.
ISRAEL ON ALERT: Israel went on high alert on Friday for possible Palestinian militant attacks over its New Year holiday weekend, coinciding with the third anniversary of the intifada.
A member of Islamic Jihad, a militant faction hostile to coexistence with Israel, was killed in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday when a bomb blew up as he was assembling it. Islamic Jihad sources said another militant was wounded.
The roadmap for Palestinian statehood on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war has been stymied since its launch in June by intractable tit-for-tat bloodshed and an Arafat-Abbas power struggle.
The U.S.-led quartet of mediators on Friday put the onus on Palestinians to save the plan by subduing militants while also demanding Israel stop expanding settlements on occupied Palestinian lands they are seeking for a state.
But a cycle of violence bedevilling diplomacy was likely to continue after a Palestinian gunman crept into a Jewish settlement on Friday night and killed a seven-month-old girl and a man of 30 who opened the door to him, before being shot dead.
Israel vowed further military strikes against what it calls the Palestinian “terrorist infrastructure” after the assault inside Negohot enclave, carried out as Israelis began festive family dinners marking the Jewish New Year.
Israel clamped a general ban on Palestinian travel within and out of the West Bank and Gaza, except for humanitarian reasons, until the New Year ends at sunset on Sunday.
Hundreds of masked militants firing assault rifles in the air and holding up photos of Arafat marched in the Gaza city of Khan Younis to mark the uprising anniversary.—Reuters
