Actualité - Rice Calls on Hamas to Cooperate with Abbas

Franc-parler présente un article du Palestine Media Center. Ce texte illustre avec brio la vision sectaire du gouvernement américain qui s'évertue à considérer le monde de façon bipolaire et ce, sans prendre conscience de la réalité du peuple palestinien qui doit lutter chaque jour pour leur survie devant Israël.

Poll Shows Fatah, Hamas Tied

(4 oct) - The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Hamas to cooperate with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying the current Palestinian government cannot govern in the region.

Rice visited a number of Arab countries as part of her visit to the Middle East. During her talks, the Arab leaders argued that the festering grievances of the stateless Palestinians feed unrest and radicalism elsewhere.

“The issue is how to make peace, and in order to make peace you have to identify the problem,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said during a press conference with Rice.

“We think and we claim and we keep telling everybody that it is the Palestinian problem, and the lack of a settlement for the Palestinians. The Palestinian problem is the scourge of this region,” Gheit said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said the nearly 60-year-old conflict was creating a “breeding ground for extremism.”

“There is a very short step from extremism to terrorism,” Saud said with Rice by his side in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. “And ever since the problem arose of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the region has been destabilized.”

Rice is expected to hold talks with President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. This will be the administration's third meeting in less than three weeks with Abbas, whom President Bush called a “man of courage” for trying to revive Mideast peace talks.

Rice met in Cairo with diplomats from Egypt and seven other Arab allies in hopes of reviving the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process and making headway on other regional issues. During that session the ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and Egypt and Jordan gave broad support to Abbas, Rice said.

Meanwhile, a poll published Tuesday showed that The Fatah movement is tied with Hamas in voter support, undercutting hopes by Palestinian moderates that Fatah could oust Hamas if new elections were held.

As one of several options, Abbas is considering calling early elections, both for president and parliament, but Tuesday’s poll and other recent surveys indicate there is no guarantee voters would return Fatah to power.

Also, previous polls have understated support for Hamas. Before Hamas won a January parliamentary election by a wide margin, polls showed Fatah leading, and even exit polls on election day forecast a Fatah victory.

The survey was conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center Sept. 19-22, before a new round of deadly internal violence erupted this weekend. At the time of the survey, Hamas and Fatah were negotiating the formation of a national unity government, but the talks have since broken down.

In the survey, 56 percent said a national unity government was the best way out of the current crisis. If an election were held today, Fatah would get 32 percent of the vote, compared with 30 percent for Hamas.

More than half said they oppose attacks on Israel and 47 percent said they support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(Palestine Media Center)