THE POLITICAL tsunami set off across the Middle East by the “Arab spring” uprisings continues to reshape the region’s old order and shake its ageing leaderships. The latest development is the apparent reconciliation of the divided Palestinian leaderships of Hamas and Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah in a deal that promises an agreed interim joint government, a merging of security forces and a path to elections to give legitimacy to political leaders.
Inspired by events in Tunis and Cairo, huge numbers of young people in March demonstrated in Gaza and the West Bank in support of Palestinian unity. In Cairo’s new political climate, Egyptian intelligence officers successfully injected a new dynamic into talks between the factions. The result is a deal that appears to heal (or at least creates a mutual modus vivendi) a rift that since 2006 has produced often bloody clashes, separate rule in Gaza and the West Bank, and a hopelessly divided face to common foe Israel.
Unsurprisingly, the response from Israel is hostile. “The Palestinian Authority must chose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. There is no possibility of peace with both,” Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu says. He insists Hamas remains beyond the pale because of its refusal to abandon the armed struggle or to recognise Israel’s right to exist, and that peace talks with the authority are out of the question. Ministers have urged the US and EU to end financial aid to the Palestinians.
However, Palestinian unity need not mean an end to the possibility of resuming peace negotiations with Israel which collapsed in September. And, without the latter engaging with Hamas. Abbas made clear yesterday that the deal leaves unaffected the acceptance by the group of the leadership of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which he heads, “in handling politics, negotiations”.
It is a formula which has in the past allowed talks to take place with tacit, albeit temporary, Hamas consent. The group has hinted also at a willingness to sign a long-term ceasefire with Israel in the context of the recognition of a Palestinian state, an issue which will come to the UN in September with fresh impetus. In truth, if Israel wants to reach a comprehensive understanding with the Palestinians, it must begin to accept that a deal will never stick unless it has at least tacit approval from Hamas’s base. Unification of the Palestinian leadership will not be a sufficient condition for that, but it is a necessary first step.