If there is to be any kind of real progress to the Palestinian situation, the Palestinians themselves will have to make the first move. And it appears they will, starting at the top. Hoping to end the US-Israeli stranglehold on Palestinian society, Hamas and Fatah are apparently on the way to forming a national unity government.
On the outside, statements from both sides indicate that not only will there be such a Cabinet mix soon but that it will also be set up with little, if any, friction. Fatah officials say their movement, which has about 45 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council (Hamas holds nearly 70), will not, to cite one example of cooperation, insist that the next prime minister be a Fatah member. For its part, Hamas insists that its main preoccupation is the national cause, and that it has never put its immediate interests before that of the Palestinian people.
These are all rosy statements but the truth is far from so plain. Palestinians might welcome the formation of a national unity government in the hope that it would succeed in overcoming the overwhelming present political-economic crisis facing Palestinian society. The formation of such a government, however, cannot possibly be easy since it would mean Hamas having to give up some of its influence. Herein lies the problem. Hamas has the right to rule by itself, having been legally elected by the Palestinians. That Hamas must concede some political territory due to outside elements that will not do business with it goes against all the rules written in the name of noninterference in the domestic affairs of any country by outside forces. The irony is that the dissenting outside party, the United States, publicly refuses to acknowledge the democratic process which brought Hamas to power, the very process which Washington espouses everywhere else in the world except, it seems, in Palestine.
The current Palestinian teachers’ strike makes it abundantly clear that Fatah and Hamas are still rivals. As hundreds of Hamas-supported gunmen deployed around schools in Gaza unsuccessfully try to persuade teachers and students to return to their lessons, in the West Bank, activists from Fatah stand in front of schools to enforce the strike.
But such is the situation in Gaza that a realignment of power has now become essential if there is to be change. According to the Palestinian Authority, 234 Palestinians have died with 1,267 injured as a result of the now 10-week-long Israeli incursion into Gaza. The human cost is not the only price the Palestinians pay. The Israeli Army has destroyed the bulk of civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, including power stations, schools, colleges, bridges, streets, as well as thousands of private residences. The international donors’ meeting in Stockholm which promised $500 million in aid for the Palestinian territories is rightly described as a band-aid for a deeper political problem. It buys time and makes people’s lives more tolerable, but it is not a solution. The solution is in a power-sharing formula.
