Ramallah, October 06: The Palestinian Authority support for delaying vote on a UN report accusing Israel of committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip continues to send shockwaves across the occupied lands, threatening to torpedo efforts to heal Palestinian rifts.
“(Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas gave the orders to delay voting on the report,” Hamas Premier Ismail Haniya said.
“How can the two parties (Fatah and Hamas) sit at one table and sign an agreement in this situation?
“… This has placed a heavy obstacle in the way of Palestinian unity,” he said.
The UN Human Rights Council on Friday delayed until March 2010 the vote on a report by investigator Richard Goldstone accusing Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza during its onslaught in January, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and wounded thousands.
The delay came at the request of Pakistan, on behalf of Arab, African, Non Aligned and Muslim states, a move backed by the Palestinian Authority.
“Even if a national reconciliation deal is signed, how can it be implemented if this political policy persists?” asked Haniya.
Hamas and Fatah are expected to sign a national reconciliation accord in Cairo on October 22.
The two groups have been bitterly divided since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 after driving out Abbas’s forces and effectively confining the Western-backed leader’s authority to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
An attempt by Egypt to hold a similar conference in November failed because of Abbas’s refusal to free hundreds of Hamas detainees in West Bank jails in advance.
“How can we achieve unity if this political leadership persists?” asked Haniyeh.
“Without removing these figures, there can be no consensus because this position is not the subject of consensus.”
Growing Anger
Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets to protest against the PA support for the vote delay Anger has been building across the Palestinian territories over Abbas’s support to the vote delay.
“(The decision) was a knife in the backs and in the hearts of all the martyrs,” said Jamal al-Jumaa from the Popular Campaign to End the Wall, an organisation that opposes Israel’s controversial separation fence.
Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of the West Bank town of Ramallah on Monday to protest against the PA support for the delay.
“The delay insults the blood of the martyrs and wounds our people,” read a sign carried by the protestors.
Another sign read: “Delaying the vote on the Goldstone report frees the hand of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu in Jerusalem,” referring to Israeli assaults on Muslim worshippers at Al-Quds Mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine.
The vote delay has already cracked the West Bank-based Palestinian government.
Economy minister Bassem Khuri on Saturday resigned from his post in protest at the Authority support for the delay.
There has also been strong dissension within Abbas’s Fatah group.
“The consent to defer the vote had cost us dear. We’ll need years to fix this mistake,” a Fatah official told the Al-Jazeera Online News Service.
Mohammed Jadallah, the head of the Coalition for Jerusalem, demanded an apology from Abbas.
“We want president Abbas to apologise for what happened,” he said.
“If the government had anything to do with the decision we want it to resign.”
-Agencies