The reconciliation is regarded in Cairo as the first post-Mubarak foreign policy success, writes MICHAEL JANSEN
PEOPLE POWER in Egypt, the Palestinian territories and Syria compelled Fatah and Hamas to reconcile after four years of destructive rivalry.
Next week they are set to sign an Egyptian-brokered accord providing for the formation of a technocratic government and elections within a year.
Cairo’s caretaker administration was the prime mover of the deal that eluded the Mubarak regime due to its pro-Fatah stance and reluctance to end Hamas’s isolation. Foreign minister Nabil al-Arabi has made it clear that Egypt would not only adopt a more pro-Palestinian stance but also revive Cairo’s relations with Hamas.
The deal has been welcomed by secular nationalists and the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s parent organisation. A recent poll showed 54 per cent of Egyptians want to abrogate the country’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel while only 36 per cent wish to keep it. Cairo has said it will renegotiate provisions of the treaty, particularly those covering the sale of natural gas to Israel at below market rates. This week, Egyptian students rallied outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo to demand the expulsion of the ambassador. They called for a march on May 15th to commemorate the Naqba, the Palestinian catastrophe arising from the establishment of Israel.
Egyptians regard the achievement of Fatah-Hamas reconciliation as Cairo’s first major foreign policy success of the post-Mubarak era. Arab Gulf rulers who have followed a pro-western line have expressed dismay over Egypt’s shift, but could be obliged to distance themselves from the US in response to popular anti-Israeli feeling.
Palestinian president and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas and Gaza’s de facto prime minister Ismail Haniyeh have been urged to reconcile ever since Fatah and Hamas clashed in 2007. Pressure peaked after the Egyptian uprising when Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank staged protests against division.
Neither side can resist the call for unity. Mr Abbas and Fatah need to restore credibility lost due to the US failure to rescue the moribund peace process and Israel’s refusal to halt settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Hamas’s popularity has declined because of Israel’s refusal to lift the siege on Gaza and the movement has faced an increasingly serious challenge from radical fundamentalists, who fire rockets into southern Israel. The murder of Italian rights activist Vittorio Arrigoni was a major blow to Hamas which boasts of having imposed security in Gaza.
Unrest in Syria, which hosts Hamas’s politburo, has made the movement seek a deal with Fatah and cultivate the new Egyptian regime. Hamas’s Damascus-based leadership supplies funds for the Gaza government and arms for its security forces, thereby keeping the movement in power.
Fatah and Hamas can claim credit for reunifying Palestinian ranks.
The deal is designed to end one-party rule in the Fatah-administered West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza, integrate their security forces and end the arrests of each others’ members.
The holding of long overdue presidential and legislative elections could restore legitimacy to the Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories.
Elections for the Palestinian parliament in exile could also reconnect Palestinians in the territories to those in the diaspora. They have drifted apart since the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) turned to negotiations as the means to achieve a state rather than armed struggle.
Presidential aide Nimr Hammad dismissed as irrelevant Israel’s rejection of negotiations with a unity government. He said the PLO, headed by Mr Abbas is in charge of negotiations with Israel and insisted that the PLO will follow his policies.
Mr Hammad pointed out that Israel argues it has no partner if the Palestinians are divided and no partner if they are united.