(Jerusalem Post) Khaled Abu Toameh - PA officials and newspapers continue to complain that Israel was doing its utmost to sabotage the hudna. But Palestinians seemed to deliberately ignore the fact that Israel was never a party to the hudna. Nor was it involved in the negotiations that led to the cease-fire agreement among the PA, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. At one point during the negotiations that preceded the unilateral hudna declaration, Abbas told the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza City that he would not repeat the mistake of Yasser Arafat, who in 1996 ordered the PA security forces to arrest hundreds of activists following a spate of suicide bombings in which more than 100 people were killed. "I will do everything to prevent a Palestinian civil war," Abbas stressed. Many Palestinians see the collapse of the hudna as the beginning of the end of Abbas's era. Thousands of Palestinians marched in the streets of Gaza City Thursday chanting slogans against Abbas and Minister of Security Dahlan. A leaflet distributed by Hamas advised Abbas to resign and leave the Palestinian territories immediately.
2003-08-22 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive