Abbas moves closer to keeping emergency Cabinet in place indefinitely

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Hamas boycotted the opening of the Palestinian parliament's new term Wednesday, effectively allowing President Mahmoud Abbas to keep his moderate emergency Cabinet in power.

The boycott deprived the parliament of the required quorum, preventing the Hamas-led legislature from voting against the Cabinet that Abbas assembled after Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last month.

A senior U.S. envoy, meanwhile, assured Abbas of Washington's full support for his steps against the Islamic militants in response to the Gaza fighting.

"We support the president in his decisions which are legitimate (under) Palestinian law and authority to deal with this unfortunate development," said State Department official David Welch.

Welch met Abbas to prepare for next week's visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, another attempt to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In an interview broadcast Wednesday on Hamas TV in Gaza, Khaled Mashaal, the Syria-based leader of the Islamic group, rejected an Abbas proposal to post an international peace force in Gaza. "It's (bad) enough to have Zionist forces, for us to have international forces as well?" he said.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in mid-June, following a five-day battle against security forces loyal to Abbas' Fatah movement. In response, Abbas fired the Hamas-led coalition government and installed a West Bank-based emergency Cabinet, led by moderate Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a respected economist.

Hamas denounced Abbas' measures as illegal, and said it would not recognize the new government.

Under Palestinian law, an emergency government can only rule for one month, and any extension requires parliament's approval.

Hamas has 74 members in the 132-seat parliament. However, 41 Hamas legislators have been rounded up by Israel in the past year, leaving Fatah with an effective majority with its 42 legislators.

Last week, Abbas issued a presidential decree, calling for a parliament session Wednesday to start a new term, during which a new speaker would be elected. Currently, the speaker and his deputy are from Hamas, but the Islamists would have lost Wednesday's voting.

As a result, Hamas refused to attend the session.

The deputy speaker of parliament, Ahmed Bahar of Hamas, said Abbas had no right to convene parliament in the first place. "We consider this decree to call the session for today a clear infringement on the constitution," Bahar said, adding that only the speaker can convene a session.

Ostensibly a setback for Fatah, parliament's failure to meet in fact allowed Abbas to extend the emergency government's term, said Azmi Shuaibi, a former legislator. Under the Palestinians' basic law, the president can rule by decree if parliament is unable to convene.

Abbas' aides did not say if and when he planned to extend the term of the Cabinet, but such a move is widely expected.

Meanwhile, the 7,500-student Bir Zeit University closed indefinitely, following a fight between Hamas and Fatah supporters in which 20 people were hospitalized with injuries from clubs and stones. The clash erupted during a Hamas protest over Fatah's recent arrest of three Hamas activists at the university, said student leaders of the rival factions.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)