Conflict Blotter

Palestinian PM Salam Fayad presented his new governing program yesterday at a cabinet meeting in Ramallah, which notably made no mention of armed resistance for the first time in the history of Palestinian governing programs. Both the Fatah charter and Abbas’ December 2004 platform mentioned armed struggle as a legitimate.

In response, the Popular Resistance Committees have threatened to start targetting Fayad and his government with violent attacks. Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha in an interview with Israel radio vowed Hamas would step up their violent fight against Israel to prove to Abbas and Fayad that the armed struggle was not dead:

You cannot erase the resistance, the armed struggle, by means of a decision or a platform. We will step up the armed struggle against Israel to prove that it continues.

In a joint statement, Hamas and Islamic Jihad accused Faayad’s government of abandoning the resistance:

Fayad’s government has given up on the principles of the Palestinian people, recognized everyone, and done what the Zionist enemy, and its accomplice, the United States, desired – in exchange for dollars.