RAMALLAH, occupied Palestine, 6 February 2007 — Palestinian factions are meeting in Makkah today under a reconciliation conference convened by Saudi Arabia. Will it achieve anything? After the failure of the Quartet meeting and previous Arab mediation efforts to end the Palestinian strife, Palestinians are pinning their hopes on Makkah.
Palestinians expressed disappointment at the results of the Quartet’s meeting in Washington. The Quartet was supposed to intervene in the fierce infighting in Gaza and to end the financial and political boycott of the Hamas-led government. But the Quartet reaffirmed the international aid embargo against the Palestinian government unless it renounced violence, recognized Israel and accepted past peace agreements signed between the PLO and Israel. Hamas has refused to meet those terms up to now, leading to a cutoff of direct international aid and a breakdown of services and order in the Palestinian territories. Political and financial sanctions imposed by the international community have failed to bring down the Hamas-led government. Many observers today admit that they were mistaken in their earlier assessment that Ismail Haniyeh’s government would collapse as a result of the local and international pressure. Their predictions that Hamas’ popularity would drop have also proven to be wrong.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hopes that replacing the current Hamas-led government with a more moderate national unity government would be enough to persuade the West and Israel to lift crippling sanctions imposed on the Palestinian government to pressure it to abandon its militant anti-Israel stand. But previous rounds of coalition talks between Abbas and Hamas leaders to convince Hamas to change its positions in order to save the Palestinian Authority from economic collapse and the territories from catastrophic anarchy have ended in failure and often led to new bloodletting. The last round of talks for forming a national unity government was held between Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus last month. They failed to reach an agreement over the distribution of Cabinet portfolios in the proposed government, mainly the Interior Ministry, which is formally responsible for the PA security forces, and the political platform of the government.
King Abdullah invited Abbas, Meshaal, and Prime Minister Haniyeh to meet in the holy city of Makkah in a bid to end the mutual slaughter taking place in the Palestinian territories and to solve the internal conflict with the formation of a national unity government. Will Saudi Arabia succeed where Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and Syria have failed?
According to observers, what Saudi Arabia needs is to find a foreign policy compromise that would free the Palestinian Authority from the international political and financial siege imposed on it. Once a compromise is found, the distribution of ministerial portfolios will not be much of a problem if the two sides are sincere about resolving the crisis.
It would appear that there is a chance for Saudi Arabia to understand the true positions of the two Palestinian sides. It can ascertain if there is a diplomatic or political solution to the problems raised by Hamas, or that the internecine fighting between Fatah and Hamas is no more than a struggle for power and domination of the Palestinian Authority. Saudi Arabia has the chance to bring the two Palestinian factions back to the realization that neither can eliminate the other.
It seems that reviving King Abdullah’s Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 will be of great interest at this time. The initiative “called for full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967, in compliance with the Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, reaffirmed by the Madrid Conference of 1991 and the land-for-peace principle, and Israel’s acceptance of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in return for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel.” For Hamas, the initiative can be a suitable approach toward Israel in light of Meshaal’s statement last month recognizing Israel as a “fact” and calling for long-term cease-fire with Israel in exchange for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and by implicitly presenting its recognition of Israel as a condition for Israel’s recognition of it. Hamas can put the initiative back on track as a basis for future peace negotiations with Israel. After all Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said last year that Israel “must deal with the Saudi initiative as a basis for negotiations.”
Once Hamas and Fatah accept this compromise, they can go ahead with the formation of a Palestinian national unity government. Saudi Arabia can help them win recognition for the new government from the Quartet, mainly the US that appreciates Riyadh’s regional role. Moreover, the moderate policy of Saudi Arabia has enabled the Kingdom to resolve Arab disputes in the past. In 1973, Saudi Arabia ended the crisis between Iraq and Kuwait when Iraq infiltrated the Kuwaiti boundaries. In 1989, Saudi Arabia succeeded in putting an end to the Lebanese civil war by concluding the Taif Agreement.
An agreement in Makkah, on the basis of Arab Peace Initiative, or on the basis of Hamas “respecting” the Quartet preconditions, is of great significance for the Palestinians and Saudi Arabia. For Palestinians, it seems that it will be the last chance to avoid a civil war.
For Saudi Arabia, it is a chance to prove its leading regional role despite the fact that the Quartet’s reaffirmation of its Jan. 30, 2006 preconditions minimizes the chances of Saudi Arabia succeeding. Besides it will be a step for Saudi Arabia to revive its peace initiative that was rejected and spurned by Israel.
The initiative was adopted by the Arab League in its summit at Beirut on March 28, 2002. Ariel Sharon, then Israeli prime minister, launched the “Operation Defensive Shield” the next day and reoccupied all major West Bank cities. Failing to achieve an agreement in Makkah will be handing over the regional initiative to Iran.
— Mohammed Mar’i is a freelance Palestinian journalist based in Ramallah, Occupied Palestine.)
