Mahmoud Abbas this week unveiled to the Palestinian parliament his roadmap to independence. It received the bloodiest of welcomes, writes Graham Usher in Jerusalem In his inaugural as the Palestinian Authority's new prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas (better known as Abu Mazen) rejected "terror on either side and in any form" and vowed to put an end to the "chaos of arms" in the Palestinian areas, an implicit warning to the various Palestinian militias that the "security pluralism" of the armed Intifada must soon end. "This nation has one authority and one government," he said. The "one government" was then approved by the PA parliament by 51 votes to 18 with 13 abstentions, a larger than expected majority. A few hours later a Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and three others and wounded 50 more outside a restaurant in Tel Aviv, demonstrating the most lethal kind of extra- parliamentary Palestinian opposition Abbas and his new Security Minister, Mohamed Dahlan, will face. Unconfirmed reports said the bomber was a Palestinian from Tulkarm, dispatched by Hamas and Fatah's dissident Al-Aqsa Brigades militia. Speaking prior to the attack Hamas's political leader in Gaza, Aziz Rantisi, said Hamas would "never lay down its weapons and will not allow anyone to disarm it". The parliament's decision should pave the way for the formal publication of the so-called roadmap, the latest diplomatic plan authored by the Middle East Quartet (the US, EU, UN and Russia) for ending the Israel-Palestinian conflict, this time by 2005. The attack in Tel Aviv underscored its urgency, if the blood-soaked violence in Israel and the occupied territories is to be staunched. The only Palestinian consensus is that Abbas and his government cannot walk the road alone. They will need help, and not only from the Palestinian militias. However bitter the disputes that erupted between Abbas and Yasser Arafat during the formation of the new Palestinian cabinet, unity was the order of the day when it was formally presented to parliament in Ramallah on Tuesday. The unity was expressed through the two men's utterly distinct personalities. Arafat was alternatively cheerful and angry, urging that his people be "steadfast" and that the various Palestinian factions resume the national dialogue on achieving a unilateral Palestinian cease- fire begun in Cairo earlier this year. Abbas was typically introverted, devoting a large part of his speech on the domestic Palestinian need to reform their governance, particularly in the areas of ensuring "personal security for the Palestinian citizen", establishing an independent judiciary and rooting out financial corruption in the PA ministries. But on the future aims and means of the Palestinian national struggle there was barely any light between the old and new leaders. Both reaffirmed their commitment to the roadmap and where ultimately they believe it should lead. "Ending the occupation and the settlements in their various forms on all the territory occupied in 1967, including our eternal capital Jerusalem, is the number one national task," said Abbas. He also agreed with his leader that roadmap is not a vague formula for negotiations. On the contrary, it is "a plan to be implemented under tight and active [international] control". Israel disagrees. It sees the roadmap as a draft, subject to "comments" and revisions from both sides. Among the changes Israel wants introduced is that any Israeli withdrawal from the reoccupied Palestinian cities be conditional on PA action against the militias and that any settlement freeze follow (rather than run parallel to) a Palestinian cease-fire. It also wants the Palestinian leadership to immediately renounce the Palestinian refugees' right of return to their homes in what was Mandate Palestine but is now Israel. The US supports Israel on the first two demands, says Israeli media sources. It has not commented on the right of return "reservation". The Palestinians have been less circumspect. "I don't think Israel has the right to be selective and choose only the things it wants," said Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat. "If this happens, it will kill the roadmap." But before the Palestinians join diplomatic battle on these matters Abbas must win support for ending the Intifada. He has reportedly sent Dahlan to resume cease-fire talks with leaders of the Palestinian opposition, especially Hamas and Islamic Jihad, urging them to become political parties in readiness for new Palestinian elections rather than militias primed for "martyrdom". It is unlikely Dahlan will receive an answer different from those aired at the earlier inter-factional talks in Gaza and Cairo. "We have a basic equation: where there is occupation, there is resistance," says Hamas political leader, Ismail Abu Shanab. "Hamas political and military strategy will be determined by Israel's actions in the occupied territories". Those actions are continuing undimmed. On Tuesday, a few hours before the Palestinian parliament convened in Ramallah, rockets from an Israeli helicopter gun-ship killed two Palestinians in a car in Khan Yunis, one allegedly a fugitive belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the other, apparently, an innocent. At around the same time two activists belonging to the Al-Aqsa Brigades were killed in a shoot out with the Israeli army in Al- Khader village, near Bethlehem. If this is the future of the roadmap, then it is not going to work, says PA Labour Minister Ghassan Khatib. He believes the only way the new Palestinian government can end Palestinian armed attacks is in return for "tangible achievements", such as a withdrawal from the Palestinian cities, a real relaxation of Israel's closure policies and a monitored settlement freeze. To act against the Palestinian militias in the absence of such reciprocal Israeli measures "is a very dangerous road, one Abu Mazen cannot afford to take", he says.
