Rival Palestinian Factions Agree To Halt Clashes
Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer Gaza (AHN)-The Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the more-militant Hamas group agreed on Wednesday to halt their clashes, as they headed for a showdown over Abbas's threat to hold a referendum on a statehood proposal. Abbas has given the Hamas government until the end of the week to accept a manifesto calling for a Palestinian state that implicitly recognizes Israel or face a vote on the issue. Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah, says, the president would issue a decree on Saturday setting the stage for the referendum if the Hamas Islamists still refused to back the proposal. According to the Reuters report, the Islamists, who refuse to recognize Israel, reject the statehood manifesto penned by prisoners in an Israeli jail and say a referendum would be illegal so soon after elections. A referendum would be seen as a confidence vote on the Hamas government, whose election led the West and Israel to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority. The document implicitly recognizes Israel in its call for a Palestinian state on all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
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