It is not a foregone conclusion that Fatah and Hamas will remain separated and will independently control the West Bank and Gaza forever. A pivotal meeting in Cairo later this month between the two could see the situation return to the political and geographic unity prevailing before June 2007 when Fatah and Hamas went their separate ways.
Fatah and Hamas will meet for talks aimed at forming a transitional government comprising ministers acceptable to the rival factions. Ideally, the target should be some sort of nonfactional transition government that would help — actually force — the international community, which shuns Hamas, to deal with the new government. The hope would be to unite Palestinians and, No. 2, ease the blockade of Gaza, which every single human rights group says is facing a humanitarian crisis.
However, cobbling together a government acceptable to both sides and the rest of the world is a daunting task. We know, for example, that Hamas will reject a government of professionals that it believes is little more than a surreptitious way of removing it from power in Gaza. On the other hand, Hamas leaders could agree to a national reconciliation government consisting of representatives of the factions and independent national figures. After all, they are aware that differences over the composition of the government are nothing when compared to the disputes over the political program of the government. In this regard, Hamas insists that the program must be grounded on the Makkah Agreement signed between the two factions in February 2007.
Hamas also opposes any extension to Mahmoud Abbas’s term as president. As of Jan. 8, 2009, when Palestinian presidential elections are scheduled, Hamas will regard Abbas as solely the leader of Fatah, not as the president of the Palestinian Authority. But in another sign of compromise, it is willing to place “elections on the table for negotiations.”
A major stumbling block is the restructuring of the security apparatus that should extend beyond Gaza to the West Bank, something Hamas wants but Fatah opposes.
Abbas appears to be operating from the assumption that the Cairo meetings are doomed to failure due to the enormous gap between Fatah and Hamas when it comes to policy matters. This is the only explanation for his trying to build an alliance with the left-wing Palestinian factions and, perhaps, Islamic Jihad. Since the Islamic Jihad is the only other major Islamist faction in the field, Abbas seems keen on soliciting the support of that faction or at least to persuade it to remain neutral. Toward this end, he promised the Islamic Jihad leadership that he would consider releasing all the movement’s detainees in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has signaled that the league will blame the inter-Palestinian rift on the party that obstructs an agreement. However good his intentions, such an approach is not going to help the reconciliation talks.
