Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas named British-educated political independent Rami Hamdallah as his new prime minister on Sunday, a move that was immediately condemned by Hamas, the rulers of the Gaza Strip.The Guardian article makes it seem that the Hamas claim is based on Abbas's failure to follow through on a unity government with them.
Abbas and the militant Islamist group agreed in principle last month to form a unity government for the divided Palestinian territories, and a Hamas spokesman said Hamdallah's appointment threw that into doubt.
Fawzi Barhoum told Reuters: "Abbas should have implemented the reconciliation [deal]" achieved in Cairo last month, rather than name his own independent candidate as prime minister. The group called Hamdallah's appointment "illegal".
In actuality, the reason Hamdallah's appointment is illegal is the same reason that Hamas claimed that Fayyad's appointment as Prime Minister was illegal -- and since Hamas was right about Fayyad, the same reasons then would apply now.
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| Rami Hamdallah -- appointed to be next Prime Minister by Abbas...illegally. Credit: The Guardian |
Steven J. Rosen wrote back in 2011 that in addition to Abbas, Fayyad held his position as Prime Minister illegally:
Hamas denies that Abbas has the authority to appoint Salam Fayyad as prime minister, because Abbas is not legally the president of Palestine under Article 65 and because Fayyad has not been empowered as prime minister by the Palestinian Legislative Council as required by Article 66 of the Basic Law. Neither his first appointment, on June 15, 2007, nor his reappointment on May 19, 2009, was confirmed by the PLC as required. Hamas, which controls the majority in the PLC, considers the legal prime minister of the Palestinian Authority to continue to be Ismail Haniyeh, a senior political leader of Hamas. Haniyeh was empowered by the PLC to be prime minister of Palestine in February 2006. Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from the office on June 14, 2007, after the Gaza coup, but Haniyeh counters that this decree violated articles 45, 78, and 83 and that he continues to exercise prime ministerial authority under Article 83. The PLC also continues to recognize Haniyeh's authority as prime minister. Here again, Hamas has the law on its side.The fact that Abbas is currently serving the 9th year of his 4 year term as president hardly lends any credibility to Hamdallah's appointment as prime minister -- and considering the fact that Hamas has already taken a dislike to Hamdallah makes it unlikely that the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Legislative Council will be making the legally required confirmation of the Hamdallah appointment in the near future.
The legalities of the Palestinian Constitution will of course have no effect on the worldwide acceptance of Hamdallah as Prime Minister, since the West has no qualms about joining the Palestinian Arabs in their various fantasies.
Ironically, the ones who seem to care about the fact that Abbas is not legally president and has no power to appoint Hamdallah to be prime minister are the terrorists of Hamas.
Such is the degree to which matters have sunk in the Middle East.
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