Hamas-Led Parliament Takes Power

With solemn speeches and an incantation of Koranic verses, a new Palestinian legislature dominated by the Islamist group Hamas was sworn in Saturday, setting the scene for a tense confrontation with Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called upon the incoming government, which Hamas will form in the coming weeks, to honor past accords with Israel and continue to seek a negotiated peace that would lead to side-by-side states.

“We ... will continue our commitment to the negotiation process as the sole political, pragmatic and strategic choice,” Abbas told lawmakers, diplomats and dignitaries who assembled here for the swearing-in ceremony, together with a parallel gathering in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas leaders pledged to try to resolve political differences with moderates such as Abbas through dialogue, but several of the group’s leading lawmakers said negotiations with Israel did not figure in its plans.

Abbas “was elected according to one platform, and we were elected according to another,” said Ismail Haniya, who is considered the likely Hamas candidate for prime minister. He led the militant group’s slate of candidates to a decisive victory in Jan. 25 parliamentary elections, the Palestinians’ first in a decade and the first in which Hamas participated.

Israel, which has threatened to impose sweeping sanctions against the Hamas-led government, has said it would have no dealings with it unless it renounced its call for Israel’s destruction, recognized the Jewish state’s right to exist and disarmed its military wing.

“As of today, the rules of the game have changed,” said a senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government’s position was expected to be formally ratified at a meeting of the Cabinet today. “The Palestinian Authority ... has become a hostile entity vis-a-vis Israel. That has far-reaching implications.”

Steps being weighed by Israel include an immediate freeze on the transfer of tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority, the closure of border crossings with the Gaza Strip and a halt of construction of Gaza’s airport and seaport.

It is by no means clear that Abbas has the authority to set any preconditions for Hamas’ participation in the Palestinian government, as Israel has demanded. Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats in the legislature, and by law the largest party in parliament puts forth candidates for prime minister and the Cabinet, a process that could take up to five weeks.

Haniya, who is considered a pragmatist, has hinted that the group would present a government made up of the group’s less radical elements and some non-Hamas members.

“We are eager ... to open the door wide for Palestinian technocrats and professionals in order to offer a government that wins the confidence of the parliament and is respected by the Palestinian people and concerned parties,” he told reporters after the swearing-in ceremony.

Israel and Hamas appeared to be trying to position themselves for their looming confrontation by not yielding too much ground early on.

If the Israeli government, led by acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, puts harsh sanctions in place now, it could later rescind them and portray it as a gesture of statesmanship. Such a move could wait until after Israel’s parliamentary election, less than six weeks from now, in which Hamas already has become a major campaign issue.

Hamas, while balking at formally renouncing its call for Israel’s destruction, has signaled readiness to call for a long-term hudna, or truce. It also has moderated its position somewhat by indicating it would seek the creation of a Palestinian state only in the West Bank and Gaza, rather than in all of historic Palestine -- which encompasses Israel.

And although Hamas has refused to disarm, it started to turn away from its armed campaign last year when it began taking part in municipal elections. The group, which was responsible for dozens of suicide bombings during the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, has not carried out such a suicide attack inside Israel for more than a year.

As the militant group moves to assert some degree of control over the new government, delicate internal negotiations lie ahead. Under Palestinian law, powers are divided between the executive branch and the parliament.

Abbas, who was elected last year to a four-year term as president, wields control over diplomacy, peace talks and most elements of the security forces, while Cabinet ministers oversee day-to-day affairs.

Abbas made it clear he would try to find compromise with Hamas where possible.

“Why assume there will be a crisis?” he asked reporters after the swearing-in. “Let us resort to dialogue. This is our position and our policy.”

The ceremony was replete with overtones not only of the Palestinians’ conflict with Israel, but of the divide between the triumphant Hamas and Fatah, the long-ruling party it soundly defeated. Fatah lawmakers interrupted Abbas’ speech at several points with applause, while Hamas lawmakers remained silent as the Fatah standard-bearer spoke.

More than a dozen lawmakers who are either in prison or fugitives were counted as “present” during the roll call. And Hamas lawmakers carried a portrait of one of its jailed members, Sheik Hassan Yousef, into the meeting hall.

Israel had forbidden most of the new lawmakers living in Gaza to travel to the West Bank, including senior Hamas figures such as Haniya and Mahmoud Zahar, who has been chosen majority leader in the new legislature. So they took part in the ceremony via a sometimes-balky video teleconferencing link from the legislative building in Gaza City.

In Ramallah, Abbas chose to convene the gathering at his own headquarters rather than the parliament building, possibly as a means of underscoring his presidential authority. Lawmakers assembled in a cramped conference hall at the complex known as the Muqata, where the late leader Yasser Arafat was confined for the last two years of his life.

Cultural differences could readily be seen between the Hamas and Fatah contingents. A group of Hamas members crouched in prayer inside the hall during a break in the Gaza session. Female Hamas lawmakers wore head scarves and long robes; the women with Fatah and other secular parties kept their heads uncovered and favored pantsuits.

In another snapshot of the transition of power, the new Hamas parliament speaker, Aziz Dweik, hesitated momentarily when his official car arrived to pick him up after the swearing-in -- a shiny black Mercedes that is designated for the holder of his post. Then he got in and was driven away.

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Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammaleh in Gaza City contributed to this report.