Ostracising Hamas is damaging Palestinian unity government negotiations, writes MICHAEL JANSEN
AS EGYPTIAN-brokered negotiations to forge a Palestinian unity government faltered, Cairo dispatched senior officials to the EU and US to press them to reconsider their boycott of Hamas.
Following the movement’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, the quartet – comprised of the US, EU, UN and Russia – conditioned dealings with Hamas on its recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, and acceptance of agreements reached between Israel and the mainstream Palestinian movement, Fatah.
Hamas responded by saying it is prepared to accept a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, reach a long-term truce with Israel, and “respect” Israel-Fatah agreements.
Hamas’s offer was rejected by the quartet. This rejection could torpedo the formation of a Palestinian unity government. Hamas insists that it include political factions in accordance with their representation in parliament. Fatah, which favours a cabinet of independents, could accept the Hamas stand if the quartet agrees to relax its conditions. A Palestinian source involved in the talks said that unless this happens, the talks could collapse even though negotiators set new Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections for next January and reached understandings on other major issues.
Since the formation of a unity government is the key to reconciliation, Egypt decided to appeal directly to the EU and US for a change of policy.
Foreign minister Ahmad Aboul Gheit went to Brussels and Egypt’s influential intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to Washington. Aboul Gheit met EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, British foreign secretary David Miliband and EU development commissioner Louis Michel. “I found full agreement with the Europeans on the issue of the peace process and Palestinian national reconciliation,” Aboul Gheit stated.
Kayed al-Ghoul, a Popular Front participant in the Cairo talks, said that what is needed is a “compromise formula that would be acceptable to Hamas and the international community”.
Meanwhile, following the signing of a coalition agreement between Israel’s right-wing Likud and ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu parties, Solana put forward an EU condition. “We will be ready to do business as usual. . . with a government in Israel that is prepared to continue talking and working for a two-state solution [involving the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel]. If that is not the case, the situation would be different.”
Likud head and premier-elect Binyamin Netanyahu has said he opposes the emergence of a Palestinian state and has rejected the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Yisrael Beiteinu chief, Avigdor Lieberman, who lives in a West Bank settlement, takes a similar line. Since he has been offered the post of foreign minister in the proposed coalition, Palestinians do not believe the peace process will prosper while this government is in office.