Hamas said on Wednesday the Palestinian parliament would meet next week to vote on its new cabinet despite the Palestine Liberation Organization's rejection of its governing agenda.

Hamas Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh attends the weekly session of the Palestinian parliament in Gaza March 22, 2006. [Reuters]

"I will present the Palestinian government, and its social and political programs, for a vote of confidence to the members of the Palestinian Legislative Council," Hamas's prime minister-designate, Ismail Haniyeh, said, citing an agreement with President Mahmoud Abbas.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, slated to be foreign minister, initially said the meeting would take place on Saturday. But following further consultations with Abbas, Aziz Dweik, the Hamas speaker of parliament, told reporters the session would begin on Monday.

Hamas, which crushed Abbas's long-dominant Fatah faction in a January 25 parliamentary election and advocates Israel's destruction, holds a majority in the legislature.

Hamas officials said the ratification vote was not expected until after March 28, the date of Israel's general election.

Mainstream Israeli political parties reject dealing with Hamas until it renounces violence, recognizes the Jewish state and abides by prior interim peace accords.

Chafing at Hamas's refusal to accept the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, the PLO's Executive Committee met in the West Bank city of Ramallah and formally rejected the group's platform.

Abbas on Sunday withheld his acceptance of a cabinet line-up presented by Haniyeh.

But after calling the Executive Committee into session, he said he would not stand in the way of parliament's ratification of a Hamas-led government. "There will be no constitutional crisis, God willing," Abbas told reporters.

Taysir Khaled, a member of the PLO decision-making committee, predicted that while parliament would likely vote its approval, a Hamas cabinet "would be isolated by the Arab world and the international community."

Hamas, opposed to the PLO's interim peace deals with the Jewish state, announced it would form a government alone after all other Palestinian movements refused to join.

Some factions cited Hamas's refusal to recognize the primacy of the PLO, long the voice of the Palestinian people and their aspirations for statehood.

Abbas held out the hope that Hamas might still amend its policies. "Nobody can reject or accept the PLO from which the Palestinian Authority was created," he said.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the PLO committee had no right to interfere in the formation of a government.

Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal, in an interview with Reuters in Abu Dhabi, said the group would continue to pursue what he called "armed resistance" against Israeli occupation.

Fatah officials had said they expected Abbas not to spark any constitutional crisis with Hamas now, but to reserve the right to dismiss a Hamas prime minister down the line if he concludes the group is violating Palestinian national interests.

Israel and the United States have pledged to isolate Hamas. The Palestinian Authority could also face cuts in vital foreign aid once a Hamas-led government is in place.

"The Israeli people hasn't the time, nor the need, to wait 20 years until Hamas matures," interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israel's Channel 10 television.