PALESTINIAN unity is a must and is a prerequisite to any meaningful strategy aimed at ending the Israeli occupation. But the term is becoming a cheap mantra, devoid of any meaning.

Palestinian disunity and fragmentation is undermining their cause more than all Israeli efforts, walls, settlements and military incursions combined. The bickering between representatives of various Palestinian factions has led to confusion among traditionally pro-Palestinian groups. The political objectives, once agreed upon as constants and symbols that united Palestinians everywhere, are now wide open for interpretation.

Every Palestinian group, for example, used to pay obeisance to the sanctity of Palestinian blood. Now we know how many times even this principle has been violated, reducing it to one more empty slogan.

Both Fatah and Hamas must make compromises. Fatah should not try to isolate Hamas just because it has international support, especially when ordinary Palestinians think this support and legitimacy has been won by surrendering their rights and the inability of President Mahmoud Abbas to win any concessions from Israel, even the notional one of a freeze on settlements. Abbas has, in fact, been unable to shake off the tag of being a candidate of the West and that he thinks and acts in accordance with US (read Israeli) policy.

As for Hamas, its very success has proved its undoing. Following its victory in Legislative Council elections in January 2006, the world community could have congratulated the winner, promised cooperation and urged unity among rivals. Instead, some chose to do the exact opposite, ostracizing Hamas, playing favorites and smoothing the way for US-led international sanctions that have devastated Palestinian society in Gaza, leading to utter desperation and strife.

But Hamas should not seek revenge in the belief that just because it has Gaza it can have its way in everything. What is Hamas’ political leverage aside from its ability to hold on to an impoverished land with a lonely Israeli soldier in its custody?

So long as it is shunned by the world community, the possession of Gaza does not count for much. If anything, Israel may use it as an excuse for not making any concessions or commitments.

So dire has the situation become that Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has not only lashed out at Palestinian factionalism, but has made the extraordinary announcement that the League was going as far as studying the possibility of imposing sanctions on quarreling Palestinians.

It might be easy for the Arab League to pass a measure or two to sanction Palestinian groups who might be perceived as the ones jeopardizing the cause. But this would not solve the problem. What would help for a start would be for both parties to stop playing the blame game. Hamas and Fatah are certain that each one has intended to criminalize the other and hold it responsible for the inter-Palestinian rift. Both must own up to the fact that the two are responsible and must be held accountable. Without such a gesture, the reconciliation talks, now under way in Cairo or the larger gatherings scheduled for next month, will not achieve anything. Palestinians recognize better than most the dangers that are posed by the current powder keg of internal disunity. They know better than anyone else that the current state of affairs, if allowed to continue, will only set back their struggle for freedom and independence by decades.