News, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
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Fatah Approves New Palestinian Cabinet
Nazir Majally, Asharq Al-Awsat
RAMALLAH, 28 September 2003 — Leaders of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement yesterday approved a new Cabinet in a step toward ending political turmoil that has helped stall a US-backed plan for peace with Israel. The Cabinet list was not finalized, however, as Premier-designate Ahmed Qorei and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, led by Arafat, met without coming to any conclusions.
The PLO executive committee was due to meet again to discuss the list before submitting it to Parliament for final approval, expected in the coming week.
Fatah officials said Qorei had appointed Nasser Youssef, an Arafat loyalist, as interior minister, replacing the US-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 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 democratize 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 favored 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 militant group Hamas and two from leftist secular factions with reservations about peacemaking with Israel.
Qorei tried to lure actual officials from Hamas and militant ally Islamic Jihad into the Cabinet to maximize its popular backing, but they spurned him in favor of a continued struggle against Israel.
The Palestinian Cabinet took shape with Israel on high alert for possible Palestinian militant attacks over its New Year holiday weekend, coinciding with the third anniversary of a Palestinian uprising launched in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A member of Islamic Jihad, a militant faction hostile to coexistence with Israel, was killed in the southern Gaza city of Rafah yesterday when a bomb blew up as he was assembling it. Islamic Jihad sources said another militant was wounded.
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.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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