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Hamas criticizes Bush comments

US President George W. Bush is trying to set Palestinians against each other with his call to move against militant groups, the Islamic Hamas charged on Thursday, after Bush met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Washington.

Bush praised Abbas for making progress toward an orderly Palestinian state, but he warned, "The way forward is confronting the threat armed gangs present to creation of a democratic Palestine."

Israelis noted that Bush did not call publicly for Hamas to be excluded from Palestinian parliamentary elections, set for January, but Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri was furious with the US leader's call for a crackdown on militants.

Interference

"We consider this as serious American interference in our internal affairs aimed to create an internal conflict," he said.

Hamas does not recognize a Jewish state in the Middle East and has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bomb attacks that have killed hundreds of Israelis during the last five years of conflict.

Abbas has been reluctant to force a confrontation with the militants, preferring to negotiate an end to attacks against Israelis and co-opt them into the political process. At his joint news conference with Bush outside the White House, Abbas noted that all Palestinian factions could take part in the election.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Israel's Channel 2 TV that once Hamas takes a political role in elections and the parliament, it amounts to the first step toward giving up its weapons.

"The Palestinian election law is clear ... no one can use guns and no one can incite verbally and no one can use mosques," Erekat said, "No one can get their political goals through the means of force. So the election law provides that those persons and those parties and those factions who run for elections must understand that only through peaceful means can they make changes."

Abu Zuhri also rejected Bush's intention to appoint a new security envoy to replace General William Ward.
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