Israel says "irrelevant" Abbas to be Hamas "fig leaf"

Sun Feb 26, 2:32 PM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel branded Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "irrelevant" on Sunday, calling Hamas the real governing power and urging the international community not to weaken its pressure on the militant group to seek peace.

The description of the moderate leader, who won public backing by a U.S. envoy over the weekend, came on the eve of a European Union meeting on preventing the Palestinian Authority's financial collapse and possibly channeling aid to Abbas.

Israel has stopped the monthly transfer of $50 million-$55 million in tax payments to the Palestinians. Foreign donors, including the EU and the United States, threaten to cut off funds to the Authority once a Hamas-led government is sworn in.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she feared Abbas, who seeks a negotiated peace with the Jewish state, could serve as a "fig leaf" for an administration dominated by Hamas, an Islamist movement that advocates its destruction.

"Our job, among other things, will be to ensure the international community does not ... embrace Abu Mazen or some moderate statements by Hamas," she said on Channel One television, using Abbas's popular name.

Earlier, Hamas's prime minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh denied he had suggested in a Washington Post interview the group might one day recognize Israel, saying there was only a possibility of achieving a long-term truce.

Livni said Israel was "dealing with reality" after Hamas's victory over Abbas's Fatah faction in a January 25 election and it expected foreign donors to do the same now that the Palestinian Authority was being led by what she termed "terrorist groups."

"(Donors) have raised the same clear, unequivocal demands that any Palestinian government must accept," Livni said, referring to making future international aid conditional on recognition of Israel and a renunciation of violence.

"The ball is in the Palestinian court and it is up to the future Hamas government to do something with it, and in this context, Abu Mazen is irrelevant," Livni said, using a term Israel applied to the late leader, Yasser Arafat, after a Palestinian uprising began in 2000 and peace talks failed.

UNACCEPTABLE

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called Livni's statement "absolutely unacceptable" and said it reflected Israel's "non-partner policy" that has led to "military escalation."

On Saturday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch held talks with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah and said he told the Palestinian president "that our support for him and his leadership at this critical time" would continue.

Livni said she would visit European countries this week and expected to see "a desire by some of them to grab onto a more sympathetic figure, such as Abu Mazen"

"This will be pose a problem for us," she said.

The European Union, whose foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Monday, is the largest donor to the Palestinians. The EU gave them 500 million euros ($595 million) in aid last year.

A senior EU diplomat said on Friday it was not in the European Union's interest to see the Palestinian Authority break down. An EU official said several ideas were circulating, including "how to channel aid toward Mahmoud Abbas."

Foreign donors have pledged to continue providing humanitarian assistance to ease the plight of ordinary Palestinians, a promise Israel said it supported.

Hamas officials have said in the past the group would offer Israel a 10- to 15-year truce in return for a withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip before pursuing its long-term goals.

(additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)

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