Fatah hits out at Hamas over stalled unity deal

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’ Fatah party lashed out at the Islamist Hamas movement on Monday, blaming it for the failure of an Egypt-proposed Palestinian unity agreement.

The vitriol came as Abbas prepared to leave for Egypt later on Monday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday on the reconciliation process.

“Hamas has a bigger stock of lies than Netanyahu,” Mohammed Dahlan, a senior Fatah official, told reporters in Ramallah, referring to the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“They got everything they asked for in the Egyptian document, and we in Fatah knew that our position would draw fire from the sons of Fatah... But despite all this we agreed to it,” he said.

“Hamas has thwarted all efforts. They have frustrated us and Egypt.”

Egypt has been struggling to broker a reconciliation agreement between the two main Palestinian factions for months and this month proposed an agreement that would see new elections held in June.

Fatah has signed the agreement while Hamas has repeatedly postponed its official response, saying it needs more time to mull the deal.

Dahlan insisted that in the absence of a deal Abbas would call elections for January in accordance with the constitution.

“We have taken our final decision to go to elections at the constitutionally appointed time... because we respect the law,” he said.

The bitter divisions between Fatah and Hamas go back to the start of limited Palestinian self-rule in the 1990s, when Fatah strongmen cracked down on the Islamist militant group.

Their divisions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas — which had won parliamentary elections a year before — drove Abbas’ loyalists from Gaza in a week of bloody clashes, seizing control of the impoverished territory.