BICOM

Key Points

• Egyptian-brokered dialogue aimed at reconciling Fatah and Hamas has completed a fourth round since February.  That talks have not collapsed is testament to the Palestinian factions’ relatively greater commitment to reach an understanding.  A wholesale settlement of differences, however, is not on the cards.
• Instead, the two sides are attempting to find the minimal terms required for creating political space to reconstruct Gaza and hold new elections by next January, without compromising on deeper ideological issues at the heart of a deep, ongoing rift.  Each is driven by its own long-term factional interest.
• It is far from certain that even a diluted understanding will be negotiated.  Any agreement would be fragile and contingent upon external support.  Nonetheless, the potential for a national unity government to emerge in the Palestinian Authority creates a new dynamic around which external actors need to operate.
• The international community supports Palestinian unity which would facilitate Gaza redevelopment and advance the diplomatic process with Israel.  However, it also creates difficult dilemmas for many Western and Arab policymakers, who want to avoid legitimising radical forces in the region at the expense of moderate allies.

Introduction

Negotiations aimed at reconciling the two main rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, ended without an agreement in the latest round of Cairo-sponsored talks last week.  Egypt has weighed in with a new set of proposals and scheduled a further meeting on 16-17 May.  On the surface, both sides support the idea of a new understanding, but they remain divided on political, ideological and military-security issues of deep significance. This analysis examines the latest developments and the main sticking points, and how external actors, especially new administrations in the US and Israel, are reacting to the possibility of a new Palestinian government.

Towards an Egyptian-brokered understanding?

The congenital power struggle between Fatah and Hamas has intensified significantly since the latter’s victory in Palestinian elections in January 2006.  A short-lived national unity government was established following the Saudi-brokered Mecca agreement just over two years ago. This collapsed in June 2007, when Hamas gunmen turned on their Palestinian rivals and took control of the Gaza Strip. The Islamist group’s subsequent consolidation of its grip on Gaza, and close operational ties to Iran, has been seen as a dangerous development throughout the moderate Arab world, particularly in neighbouring Egypt. Reconciliation talks have been initiated a number of times since the mid-2007 conflagration. Efforts by Egypt, Yemen, the Arab League and the Palestinians themselves have been without success.

The current round of Egyptian-sponsored dialogue began in February. The heightened interest in striking a deal followed the intensive three week conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. There is a considerable impetus to facilitate aid for reconstruction in Gaza, which of course all Palestinians want, but Hamas also needs politically, as a way of boosting its local appeal in the wake of the blame it has received from triggering the conflict.  Reconstruction will require relaxation of restrictions on the crossings with Israel and Egypt, and the transfer of aid pledged by the international community. But none of these parties wish to reward Hamas, which is why Abbas stressed to his rivals last week: “We cannot rebuild Gaza without this [new unity] government.”[i]  Abbas also  has a political need to restore some of the support his party lost during the war. From a Palestinian perspective, Hamas was seen to be the sole agent of resistance against the IDF, with the Fatah dominated PA in the West Bank relegated to the sidelines or worse, complicit with Israel.

The underlying rift

The latest Egyptian proposal makes recommendations for a temporary national unity administration with a limited mandate that would hold sway only until presidential and parliamentary elections, to be held by 25 January 2010. A compromise would allow Hamas to have some form of an external role in shaping the government’s agenda through membership of an advisory council. Cairo sees this approach as a way of creating an internally acceptable administration to the Palestinians with which the international community would also be prepared to deal (by circumventing the problem of direct contact with Hamas officials). What this means in practice for how Gaza would actually be administered is far from clear.

Despite vested interests on both sides, establishing the political character of even a short-term, limited government is immensely difficult. This challenge is rooted in the mutually exclusive ideological commitments of the factions, which cannot be overcome in the way that policy divisions are sometimes bridged.  Abbas demand for Hamas to endorse past agreements with Israel signed by the PLO, and thereby win international cooperation, is anathema to the Islamist organisation’s core principles.

Hamas, meanwhile, is trying to frame the impasse with Fatah not in terms of its own rejectionist stance towards Israel but rather the PA’s priority to collaborate with outside actors before considering Palestinian national aspirations.  Ali Barakeh, from Hamas’s Damascus bureau, declared: “If Fatah doesn’t submit to… US pressure, we could within hours reach a comprehensive solution for all pending issues.”[ii]  In fact, the international ties of both groups reveal their starkly different political orientations: Fatah is conscious of coordinating with US, Europe and moderate Arab state partners, whereas Hamas operates primarily within Iranian and Syrian spheres of influence.

The issue of restructuring the security forces and integrating Hamas into a unified PA force creates particular problems.[iii]  US Lieutenant General Keith Dayton’s painstaking efforts to build the capacity of PA security forces with tens of millions of dollars of US aid has been effective not only at restoring law and order in significant parts of the West Bank but also at hampering Hamas activity there.  With a role in a new government, Hamas perceives an opportunity to curb the campaign against its members, achieve the release of over 400 Hamas activists being held in PA prisons, and consolidate its Da’wa structure-the network of social welfare, charitable services and religious teachings it promotes in Palestinian society.[iv] Abbas fears steps that will serve Hamas’s strategic goals. Since coming to power Hamas has been working first to keep its grip on Gaza, but then to extend its influence in the West Bank, and work towards taking over key institutions of governance, including, ultimately, the recognised representative body of the Palestinian people, the PLO.

External reactions and potential implications

How a possible new Palestinian government would be received externally depends on its composition and the political commitments to which it adheres. The Middle East Quartet (the United States, Russia, the United Nations and European Union) has called all parties to renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept past Palestinian-Israeli accords. In December the Quartet proposed that Palestinian unity, “based on the commitments of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)… would be an important factor in this process.”[v] There are no signs that Hamas will adapt its doctrine of ‘resistance’ to meet these international demands. In a high profile interview with New York Times this week, Hamas chief Khaled Mashal reiterated his opposition to recognising Israel[vi], a key step taken by the PLO which made the Oslo process possible.  As such, a key challenge for the international community is how to support Palestinian unity without bolstering or legitimising Hamas.

The US has expressed doubt that rival Palestinian factions will forge a unity government.  Nonetheless, the Obama administration has asked Congress to introduce a legislative amendment that would enable aid to continue to the PA on the proviso that any new Palestinian government complies with the Quartet’s standards, even if the Hamas movement itself does not.[vii] In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “We don’t want to … bind our hands in the event that such an agreement is reached”, but was clear that the US would not deal with any unity government which did not meet the international principles or transfer funds to an administration which included Hamas members.[viii]

As regards Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to draw the sharp distinction that his predecessors have done between moderate Palestinians and Islamist extremists. With the current PA, Israel sees room for dialogue and cooperation, whereas it perceives Hamas as a dangerous agent of Iran committed to undermining Israel through violent means, uninterested in or ready for compromise. In a Jerusalem Post interview last week, the new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, spoke about a shared Israeli, Egyptian and PA interest in a tough line against Hamas, but also arguing his view that Prime Minister Salam Fayyad “can really be a partner for reconstruction in Gaza.”[ix]

Like the US, the new Israeli government is reviewing policy at this time.  Netanyahu has begun to lay out his commitment to a “triple track towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians” including a political component which entails “peace negotiations without any delay and without any preconditions – the sooner the better.”[x]  But given the broader picture outlined, it is difficult to see how a deal between the Palestinian groups would not upset cooperation with Israel, as happened during the February-June 2007 unity government. Perhaps not until after Netanyahu and Abbas have met separately with Barack Obama later this month will further light be shed on how the diplomatic process might move forward.

Conclusion

Fatah and Hamas are currently reviewing Egyptian ideas to bring about a temporary unity agreement. If the factions could manage a difficult compromise that suits each of their interests and satisfies the international community as well, dynamics could shift considerably. Ongoing Palestinian division is one of the fundamental barriers to long-term resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. However, a government cobbled together for tactical purposes which is not based on a united acceptance of the Quartet’s conditions by all the factions presents pitfalls for the PA, Israel and much of the international community. As long as Hamas continues to reject the Quartet’s conditions, there will be a desire in Israel, in the West and many parts of the Arab world to limit accommodation with it, deny it legitimacy, and ensure that it is not compensated for the violence it used to instigate the recent Gaza war. Therefore, there will be an ongoing tension between the strong international desire to aid reconstruction in Gaza, and the desire not to grant political victories to Hamas.

 

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[i] ‘Abbas Urges Hamas To Accept Unity Government’, The Journal of Turkish Weekly, 27 April 2009.

[ii] Hisham Abu Taha, ‘Hamas and Fatah discuss fresh Egyptian proposals’, Arab News, 28 April 2009.

[iii]  Faisal Abu Shahla, a Fatah-affiliated lawmaker, was quoted by the Ma’an Palestinian news agency saying that Abbas had approved the temporary affiliation of the Palestinian executive force with Hamas. ‘Fatah official: Abbas’ new government will also rule Gaza’, Maan News Agency, 2 May 2009.

[iv] For further reading and debate, see ‘The Palestinian reconciliation dialogue and the conflict’, Bitterlemons, 2 March 2009; Mohammad Yaghi, ‘Palestinian Perspectives on a Unity Government’, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policywatch No. 1487, 11 March 2009.

[v] Statement by Middle East Quartet, 15 December 2008. See EU or UN links.

[vi] Addressing U.S., Hamas Says It Grounded Rockets; By Taghreed El-Khodary and Ethan Bronner; New York Times; May 4, 2009

[vii] Washington recently presented an emergency spending bill in which $840 million would be allocated to the PA, a share of which is intended for reconstruction in the Gaza Strip.

[viii] Yitzhak Benhorin, ‘Clinton: No possibility of funding Hamas’, YNet News, 30 April 2009.

[ix] David Horovitz and Amir Mizroch, ‘The world according to Lieberman’, The Jerusalem Post, 28 April 2009.

[x] See Speech by Benjamin Netanyahu, AIPAC, 5 May 2009.