Hussein Agha and Robert Malley-18/05/2007

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, (Guardian)

"The idea that bilateral negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians can produce a final agreement is dead. Its fate was sealed in part because neither side has the ability to close the gaps between the positions they have taken. The two parties also lack trust. But most of all, neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli political systems possess the requisite degree of coherence and cohesion.

On the Palestinian side, the national movement no longer has workable political institutions. It lacks effective leadership and has lost any clear political programme. Rival sources of authority have multiplied. The presidency is in the hands of Fatah, the government in those of Hamas. Gaza is cut off from the West Bank. Competing security branches and militias are proliferating. The Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas and the formation of a national unity government is a step toward clarification. But it may yet fail. In the Gaza Strip, where competition is most intense, fighting between the two groups continues.

Whatever happens, the Palestinian movement will remain fluid and difficult to pin down. The US and Israel will be tempted to persist in attempts to isolate Hamas. But such fantasies will come crashing down. One US and Israeli goal may be to bolster Abbas, yet nothing has weakened the Palestinian president more than international attempts to strengthen him. To negotiate with the Palestinian Authority while excluding Hamas would be tantamount to negotiating with only one part of the political system."

"Five years ago, the Arab League's 22 countries put forward a peace initiative offering normalisation of relations with Israel in exchange for full withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in 1967 and a negotiated resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem. Ariel Sharon, then Israel's prime minister, dismissed it. Now the Arab initiative has begun to attract widespread approval. The US was among the first to change its position. Discredited by war in Iraq and support for Israel's war in Lebanon, threatened by Iran and stung by Hamas's electoral triumph, the Bush administration began to cautiously praise the initiative. In Israel, too, the tone of commentary has been different."

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