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Israel will work with Abbas, but not Hamas
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-06 16:18
Israel's acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said Monday he will work with
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as long as he does not join forces with Hamas.
Olmert also said Israel would continue transferring monthly tax payments
to the Palestinian Authority as long as Hamas was not in control. Hamas won
parliamentary elections earlier this month, but has not yet begun forming a
government.
"I have no interest in harming Palestinian Authority chairman Abu Mazen as
long as he doesn't cooperate with Hamas and as long as the Palestinian
government isn't led by Hamas," Olmert said Monday. Abbas is widely known as Abu
Mazen.
He spoke a day after Israel agreed Sunday to transfer $54 million in
desperately needed tax money to the Palestinian Authority, but said it might
freeze payments after the Islamic Hamas group forms the next Palestinian
government.
Israel's monthly transfer of the taxes and customs duties it collects on
behalf of the Palestinians is crucial to the functioning of the Palestinian
Authority. Halting the payments would deepen the government's financial crisis
and add to the growing international pressure on Hamas to renounce violence and
recognize Israel before it takes power.
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