PREVIEW: Hamas, Fatah make new attempt at reconciliation

By Jeff Abramowitz Nov 23, 2011, 15:03 GMT

Cairo/Tel Aviv - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Hamas' Khaled Mashaal in Cairo Thursday, in another effort to form a unity government and lay the groundwork for long-overdue parliamentary and presidential elections.

The reconciliation would end a bitter - and at times violent - four year feud between the Abbas' secular Fatah party, and Mashaal's Islamist Hamas movement, which saw the Palestinian territories divided not only geographically, but politically as well, with Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip, and an Abbas-backed government the West Bank.

'Reconciliation for both Fatah and Hamas is more essential than before,' says Hani Habib, a political analyst at Gaza's al-Azar University.

Fatah, he told dpa, needs it because of the failure of the peace process with Israel, and the failure, so far, of Abbas' bid to get Palestine accepted for full UN membership.

Hamas, for its part, needs the deal to go through to increase its legitimacy. At present the movement is under a Western diplomatic boycott, because of its refusal to honour past Israeli-Palestinian agreements, renounce violence, and accept Israel's right to exist.

Polls also show that Hamas, which won the 2006 Palestinian elections, but rules only the Gaza Strip, is also losing support among Palestinians.

According to a senior Hamas official in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar, Abbas and Mashaal will discuss five points: reforming the Palestine Liberation Organization to allow Hamas and other factions who are not members to join; rebuilding the Palestinian security forces; setting a date for new elections; and getting Hamas and Fatah members to 'make peace' after the bitter feud.

The two will also try map out a strategy to achieve Palestinian statehood. Fatah is in favour of negotiations with Israel; Hamas rejects them.

The deal reconciling the two parties was announced in May this year, but its implementation has been stymied, among other reasons because the sides were unable to agree on who would head the interim government which would rule until new elections.

Abbas had been sticking by the present prime minister of the West Bank-based government, Salam Fayyad, an internationally-renowned economist, respected by the West but not by Hamas.

Abbas however, may now be prepared to ditch Fayyad - who himself has said he would not stand in the way of Palestinian unity.

Two candidates who have been mooted to replace him are Mohammed Mustafa, a West Bank businessman, or Mamoon Abu Shalah, a businesman from the Gaza Strip.

But while replacing Fayyad may get the reconciliation deal implemented, it may not earn Abbas many points in the West, where Fayyad is admired for his efforts to institute transparent governance, and to build Palestinian institutions in anticipation of statehood.

Similarly, the attempts to rebuild the Palestinian security forces could also backfire. While there may be no international objections over Fatah security officials resuming their posts in the Gaza Strip, introducing Hamas militants into the West Bank security forces will raise hackles in Israel, and possibly the US as well, both of whom view Hamas as a terrorist organization.

But even though both Hamas and Fatah are moving on putting aside their differences, the old wounds still linger, and the distrust between them has still not abated.

'So far,' says Habib, 'it seems that both sides have no intention of implementing full reconciliation.'

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