Abbas spoke to reporters after telling an Israeli newspaper that U.S. President George W. Bush promised him he would push hard to conclude a Middle East agreement before he leaves the White House in January 2009.
Yesterday, Mohammed Dahlan, a leader of Abbas’s vanquished forces in Gaza, said he would resign as national security adviser, citing health reasons. Dahlan was widely blamed for the surprising collapse of the pro-Abbas forces in five days of fighting that ended with Hamas’s takeover of the coastal Gaza Strip last month.
Dahlan, 46, rose through the ranks of Abbas’s secular Fatah movement as a protégé of the late Yasser Arafat. But he has disappointed U.S. sponsors who hoped he could counter Hamas in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Abbas told Reuters he had accepted the resignation of Dahlan, who is recovering from surgery abroad and had already been sidelined following last month’s rout of his Fatah-run forces by Islamist Hamas in Gaza.
Abbas said he had not yet appointed a successor.
Dahlan said in June he expected to be blamed for Fatah’s defeat “because I wasn’t there.”
A committee of inquiry appointed by Abbas recommended yesterday that 60 members of the security forces face trial for their poor performance in Gaza, said an Abbas aide, Rafiq Husseini. Dahlan does not face disciplinary proceedings.
In the Gaza Strip yesterday, three Israeli air strikes killed five Palestinians, including the military leader of the Islamic Jihad there. Later, four Islamic Jihad members were wounded in a firefight with Hamas forces at the scene of one of the air strikes, following a dispute over items in the targeted vehicle, witnesses said.
The Hamas takeover of Gaza has spurred a flurry of diplomatic activity, with the international community lining up behind Abbas and his West Bank-based government of moderates.
Yesterday the government, headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, approved a platform that includes acceptance of all previous peace deals with Israel. The Hamas refusal to endorse the peace accords and renounce violence led to a cut-off of international aid. The aid has been restored to Fayyad’s government.
Abbas said yesterday he would decree a change in Palestinian electoral rules that might make it harder for Hamas to maintain the parliamentary majority it won last year.
Bush is planning an international peace conference in the fall, while Condoleezza Rice, his secretary of state, is arriving next week for more talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Abbas was quoted yesterday by the Israeli daily Maariv – and the comments were later confirmed by his aides – that Bush and Rice told him they’d work hard for a final peace deal within a year.
“The Americans are determined to push the sides to reach a peace agreement during President Bush’s current term,” Abbas was quoted as saying. “I heard this with my own ears from the president himself and from Secretary of State Rice.”
Aides of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed the prime minister wants to formulate a declaration detailing what a Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank would look like. However, they hinted that it would leave out the most difficult issues, such as final borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees.