BICOM

Key Points:

• Cairo is attempting to host a ‘comprehensive national dialogue’ aimed at reconciling rival Palestinian factions, including the two main parties, Fatah and Hamas.
• The summit, now proposed for 9 November, would try to tackle key political and security issues, in order to try to form a transitional government.
• There is very little about which the rival factions agree beyond the general principle of re-establishing geopolitical unity. Nonetheless, a process of national reconciliation may still be launched because the main players have vested interests in doing so at this time.
• Ultimately, deep rifts are entrenched in the Palestinian polity, both within the movements themselves and between factional adversaries. As long as Hamas remains in control in Gaza and threatens West Bank security, there will be an elevated risk of confrontation.

Introduction

New diplomatic energy is being used in efforts to reconcile Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah party and the radical Islamist terror movement, Hamas.  Abbas raised the issue of a comprehensive national dialogue in June, but sporadic violence and a clash of interests have thwarted mainly Egyptian attempts to bring the parties together.  Notably, Abbas visited Damascus last week for the second time since the summer for talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  This followed a meeting between Hamas leaders and Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has hosted a series of contacts with the various Palestinian factions – and Israeli defence officials – in recent months.  A summit set to include at least a dozen factions under the PLO umbrella is tentatively scheduled to take place on 9 November.[i]  Cairo is keen to host talks aimed at forming a Palestinian transitional government acceptable to the rival Palestinian groups.

This brief outlines the primary motives for the Cairo talks – as well as the constraints upon them – in light of deep rifts which are entrenched in the Palestinian political echelon.  In reality, the prospects of their success seem uncertain at best.  The possibility of renewed violence between Hamas and Fatah or Israel, will remain a cause for ongoing local and international concern.

The road to Cairo

Current efforts to open a ‘comprehensive national dialogue’ are not the first time Palestinian leaders have sought to reconcile their differences.  Saudi King Abdullah brokered the Mecca deal of February 2007, which lasted just a few months before factional bitterness once again spilled over into deadly bloodshed.  The President of Yemen hosted meetings earlier this year which bore no fruit.

A new round of formal talks between the main Palestinian factions is far from guaranteed.  Whilst unauthorized conversations reportedly took place between senior Fatah officials and Hamas leaders earlier this month, there are deep mutual suspicions, and President Abbas refused to agree to a bilateral meeting as a precursor to a broader Egyptian-brokered summit including all the Palestinian factions.[ii]  Abbas travelled last week to Syria, the country which shelters Hamas political head Khaled Meshaal, to seek President Assad’s support in the internal Palestinian power struggle.[iii]  Nonetheless, a process of national reconciliation may still be launched next month because the main players have a vested interest in reengagement, and neither side wants to be seen by the Palestinian people as the ones to stand in the way of national unity.

This became evident when, characteristically, Khaled Meshaal spun Israeli and US preoccupations with their own domestic affairs as “an opportunity God has given us” to focus inwards and overcome internal differences.[iv]  Meshaal wields perhaps more influence than anyone over Hamas’s strategic direction.

Abbas has expressed his desire to launch this process for some time, but has been keen to do so in a way that cannot be construed as Fatah capitulating to Hamas. The issue is of increased concern for him now as the validity of his term of office will shortly come into question.  Hamas explicitly rejects Abbas’s continued legitimacy as president beyond the end of his four year term on 9 January 2009, which is fuelling Israeli concerns of a violent conflagration early next year.[v]  Abbas claims he has the right to stay in office until Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections can be held together, and would value some semblance of domestic unity which might avert concern in Palestinian circles of a “coming battle with Hamas” as he takes steps to cling on to his position.[vi]  The conundrum of Hamas’s military power and Islamist ideology notwithstanding, for Abbas, geopolitical contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza is simply necessary for achieving full Palestinian statehood.[vii]

A warm agenda, but cold calculations

Fatah’s relations with Hamas collapsed following the latter’s June 2007 violent coup.  Autumn talks would present the first real opportunity since then to mould a new transitional government.

Egypt has prepared a 14-point initiative, covering five key political and security topics to be addressed in Cairo.[viii]  First, it includes laying out parameters for a new administration.  As proposed, it would consist entirely of independent technocrats, which has support from within senior ranks of the PA.  Hamas prefers some kind of power-sharing arrangement, in which it would surely seek to become the senior partner, along lines more similar to the failed Mecca agreement of 2007.  Second, a solution needs to be found to the long-running dispute about Abbas’s future, by formulating a timetable for parliamentary and presidential elections.  The three other elements include restoring pre-June 2007 conditions to Gaza; institutional reform of the PLO; and restructuring the Palestinian security forces.

Sizeable gaps would need to be bridged by the respective parties for a breakthrough.  They agree upon little beyond the general principle of re-establishing geopolitical unity.  Hamas maintains that it is not willing to pay a price for doing so, hence for instance its flat rejection of the notion that external Arab security personnel be deployed in Gaza.  Clearly, this is not its vision for security reform.  Rather, Hamas will try to exploit the process of reconciliation to edge closer to its goal of dominating the Palestinian Territories.  As a PA official commented last week, “[f]rom what we understand from the Egyptians, they [Hamas] want to control everything – the PLO, the security forces and the parliament…They want to take over the presidency as well.”[ix]  Ultimately, just as with its ceasefire arrangement with Israel, Hamas may reserve the option to violate an understanding with Fatah by recourse to violence and terror in order to achieve these core objectives.

In the face of this threat, PA security forces have been boosted, under the auspices of US General Keith Dayton.  They have begun to approve their effectiveness in improving law and order in Nablus, Jenin and elsewhere.[x]  But how they would fare against Hamas military operatives is uncertain.  The activation of Hamas sleeper cells or an assassination campaign of West Bank-based security chiefs and politicians could seriously undermine the PA’s rule.  Security cooperation between Israel and Fatah – in light of what Palestinian chief of staff General Dhiab al-Ali recently referred to as a “common enemy” – has never been as overt as now.[xi]  This is the context in which a deployment of 700 additional PA forces in the Hebron area was agreed with Israel last week.[xii]

A deeper set of divisions

The challenge of Palestinian national reconciliation is hampered by deep splits which extend beyond the open rivalry between Fatah and Hamas.  Fault lines are also intra-organisational as well as between splinter factions vying for the same constituency.

Fatah is engaged in a painfully slow reform process but power remains largely concentrated in the hands of the ‘old guard’, the dwindling generation of leaders who came to the Palestinian Territories with Yasser Arafat from Tunis in 1994.[xiii]  Prior to a Cairo deal with Hamas which might weaken further still Fatah’s position, the younger generation is itching for the long overdue Sixth Fatah General Conference.  Though no firm date is set, it has been mooted for this year, following almost two decades since the last such Conference was held.  Such a move would help to refresh the movement and empower a new breed of leadership perhaps better placed to tackle the domestic challenge Hamas will present.  Regardless of whether a national dialogue gets the parties anywhere, Fatah still needs to formulate a political strategy for replenishing its Palestinian Legislative Council losses in January 2010.

Frictions between the Gaza-based Hamas leadership and those in exile are more explicitly borne out by current developments.  Khaled Meshaal’s Damascus office recently stated that it would “fight any competitor,” even if the opponent was among its own supporters, clearly indicating internal frustrations within the movement.[xiv]  As one Palestinian analyst put it, “[s]ome Hamas members are angry that Hamas is not presently fighting Israel, others are disgruntled by the slow pace of reconciliation efforts with Fatah.[xv]

Separately, the Ma’an Palestinian news agency reported last weekend how relations have openly soured between Hamas and rival terror group Islamic Jihad, with a Gaza source explaining: “Hamas is a political movement that is trying to rule while Islamic Jihad is an Islamic revolutionary movement that does not want to participate in ruling.”[xvi]  Clearly, the Hamas leadership remains sensitive to the critique – both within its own ranks and by other militant factions – that by agreeing to the Egyptian-mediated Gaza ceasefire, it hampered its own ability to ‘resist the Zionist enemy’.  Whether this arrangement with Israel will play into Hamas’s hands as part of its strategy for undermining Fatah remains to be seen.

Israel is now weighing up the cost of the ceasefire in terms of achieving progress towards the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been in Hamas captivity since June 2006.  Hamas is inclined to pressure Egypt by linking its interests to issues which lie in Egypt’s hands, from trying to reconcile the Palestinian factions to the Gaza ceasefire to brokering an agreement over the fate of the kidnapped soldier.  For instance, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri indicated over the weekend that Hamas was freezing negotiations for Shalit’s release until Egypt frees Ayman Nofal, a senior Hamas leader.[xvii]  It is plausible that Hamas’s next move will be to show intransigence in the build up to talks unless Egypt agrees to permanently reopen the Rafah terminal between Gaza and Sinai.  Ultimately, Hamas is conscious that Egypt wants credit for its diplomatic achievements vis-à-vis the Palestinians, which is important for its prestige in the Arab world. 

Conclusion

Current developments are not the first attempt to reconcile divided Palestinians.  The Fatah-Hamas rivalry is historic, complex, and deep.  It has manifested more profoundly and dramatically than ever before in the last three years, since Hamas won legislative power in the January 2006 elections and subsequently adopted violence to consolidate its grip on Gaza.  As such, any Egyptian success at reconciliation will be achieved above all on the basis of narrowly defined factional interests.  At the start of 2009, as President Abbas’s term of office comes into question, the Hamas threat to the moderate Palestinian cause will not dissipate, whether or not a new national consensus can be forged.

 

---

[i] ‘Exclusive: Egypt hands over draft agreement for Palestinian unity; Summit meeting set for 9 November’, Ma’an News Agency, 20 October 2008.

[ii] Khaled Abu Toameh, ‘Abbas to meet Assad in Damascus’, The Jerusalem Post, 11 October 2008; ‘Fatah rejects Hamas request for bilateral talks’, Reuters, 14 October 2008.

[iii] Khaled Abu Toameh, ‘Abbas to meet Assad in Damascus’, The Jerusalem Post, 11 October 2008.

[iv] Albert Aji, ‘Palestinian leaders call for reconciliation’, Associated Press, 12 October 2008.

[v] Amos Harel, ‘In the dead of winter?’, Haaretz, 19 October 2008.

[vi] I’smat Abed Al-Khaleq, ‘Hamas’ gamble – who is the loser?’, Maan News Agency, 9 October 2008.

[vii] Akiva Eldar and Avi Issacharoff, ‘Abu Mazen to Haaretz: We will compromise on refugees but demand that some will return to Israel’, Haaretz, 14 September 2008.

[viii] See reports by Middle East News Agency; also Dutsche Presse-Agentur, ‘Hamas delegation in Cairo for national unity talks’, 7 October 2008; Osama Al Sharif, ‘End the Hamas-Fatah rift’, Gulf News, 19 October 2008.

[ix] Khaled Abu Toameh, ‘Abbas rejects request by Egypt for talks with Hamas’, The Jerusalem Post, 16 October 2008.

[x] I’smat Abed Al-Khaleq, ‘Hamas’ gamble – who is the loser?’, Maan News Agency, 9 October 2008; Khaled Abu Toameh, ‘Abbas to meet Assad in Damascus’, The Jerusalem Post, 11 October 2008.

[xi] Leslie Susser, ‘Fatah Girds up for Hamas’, The Jerusalem Report (forthcoming), 27 October 2008.

[xii] Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, ‘Israel to allow 700 additional armed PA troops into Hebron’, Haaretz, 10 October 2008.

[xiii] Mouin Rabbani, Arab Reform Bulletin, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 2008.

[xiv] I’smat Abed Al-Khaleq, op. cit.

[xv] Ibid.

[xvi] Ma’an News Agency, ‘Hamas vs. Islamic Jihad: new tensions emerging’, 17 October 2008.

[xvii] Israel Radio News, 18 October 2008; ‘Hamas official: We may freeze Schalit talks till Egypt cooperates’, The Jerusalem Post, 18 October 2008.