January 11, 2005

Jordan Times

Hope For New Beginnings

Editorial

With an official 62.3 per cent of the vote and around 70 per cent of eligible voters casting their ballots on Sunday, the Fateh movement candidate, Mahmoud Abbas, won a decisive victory in his bid for the post of president of the Palestinian National Authority. Also impressive was the voters' eagerness to get to the polls despite the calls by Hamas and other radical Palestinian factions for a boycott of the elections. With such a mandate, the newly elected Palestinian president can now move more assertively, if not aggressively, to put into effect his policies on both domestic and external affairs. The factions who openly opposed Abbas have promised to give him a chance to realise the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. That the elections were conducted in relative calm under the supervision of scores of foreign observer delegations — among them a US team that said the Palestinians "have conducted a clean, open and fair election, largely unimpeded and without interference" — provides additional evidence that Abbas enjoys a clear mandate from his people to push forward with his political platform. Now it is Israel's turn to reciprocate the new message from the Palestinian people who have already conveyed their willingness to give peace and peaceful negotiations another chance. Israel must now show that it is also ready and able to move forward in that direction. While a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas is said to be planned, it was unfortunate that the Israeli premier's deputy, Ehud Olmert, could not stop himself from kvetching. Instead of acknowledging that a new era was beginning that could finally yield the long-sought after peace for both Israelis and Palestinians, Olmert spewed off the same old "put the onus on them" issues in an interview with CNN. Fortunately, the formation of a new Israeli government in which the Labour Party, under former Prime Minister Shimon Peres — who had positive comments about the Abbas win and even phoned Abu Mazen to congratulate him — will take an important seat promises to usher in, from the Israeli side too, new hopes for peace in the Middle East.