Full marks to Egypt’s newly elected president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Alone among the world’s statesmen, he has
refused to recognize the cobbled-together Fatah-Hamas “unity” government. Hamas is formally designated a “terrorist
organization” by the United States and the European Union, just as it is by
Egypt. All the same, based upon
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s assurances that his new
administration is composed solely of non-political technocrats, that it will
honour all agreements entered into by the PA, recognize Israel and reject
terror, the US and the EU, together with the United Nations and China, have
declared that they accept and will work with the new administration.
Once again, led by the US, the world as a whole prefers to turn
a blind eye to stark reality in favour of insubstantial hopes and unachievable
promises.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the Fatah-Hamas unity government, said the UN was prepared
to support it and its efforts to reunite the West Bank and Gaza, and hoped that
the move would provide new opportunities to progress the peace process with
Israel.
The EU was equally forthcoming. "We welcome the declaration by President
Abbas that this new government is committed to the principle of the two state
solution based on the 1967 borders, and to the recognition of Israel's
legitimate right to exist. The EU's engagement with the new Palestinian
government will be based on its adherence to these policies and
commitments."
Yet when on June 11 a rocket was fired from Gaza into southern
Israel, narrowly missing a major traffic highway, the US said it did not hold
the PA responsible. “We acknowledge the reality that Hamas currently controls
Gaza,” said US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki to reporters in Washington.
So, although Abbas heads a Fatah-Hamas unity government, it
is not to be held to account for the continued terrorist activities of one of
the partners. If Israel decided to bring
these crimes against humanity to the International Court of Justice, that body
might not take the same view.
Egypt’s el-Sisi sees the situation more pragmatically. He knows Hamas for what it is – an extremist
Islamist organisation, closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, intent on
overthrowing the new Egyptian administration by supporting terrorist activity
both in the Sinai and within Egypt itself.
So when the PA and Hamas claimed that Sisi, as a gesture of support for
the new Palestinian government, would open the Rafah crossing from Gaza to
Egyptian Sinai, they were wide of the mark.
Cairo’s response was that the border terminals would remain open only if PA
security forces from Ramallah assumed control of the borders and officiated at
the crossings. But Hamas has no intention of handing this strategic resource
over to Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah. Any PA bid to take over control of the
Gaza crossings would be forcibly resisted.
A standoff has therefore already developed between the two partners.
In the event, not only has Cairo kept the Rafah crossing
shut, but it has strengthened military oversight on its borders with Gaza to
prevent incursions at any point. In addition, a law has been drafted by the
Egyptian authorities proposing long prison sentences for anyone attempting to
“prepare, dig or use” a tunnel connecting Egypt to a foreign “entity” or nation
(in other words Hamas or the Palestinian government) for the passage of goods
or persons.
Under the unity deal, the PA is obligated to urge Egypt to
end its blockade of Gaza. Success in
that particular venture is, to say the least, dubious.
This Fatah-Hamas “reconciliation” papers over wide
discrepancies of policy, bitter enmity and divergent aspirations between the
two partners. For example, the unity deal stipulates that Hamas will incorporate Fatah-led PA forces in Gaza,
and that this will be reciprocated in the West Bank. This is an aspiration likely, in the words of
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, to be “more honored in the breach than the
observance.” For how will Hamas and the
PA coordinate on security when they have continued to target each other's
members since the signing of the reconciliation deal? The Freedoms Committee,
which was set up to help implement the agreement, says the ongoing arrests of Hamas
members in the West Bank has "strained the reconciliation atmosphere",
and that the charging of Fatah members in Gaza is also continuing.
How will Hamas and Fatah forces coordinate vis-à-vis Israel,
particularly given the PA’s cooperation with Israel on security issues,
including the arrest of Hamas members –
a hugely unpopular policy among Palestinians. Just last week, Abbas described the "security relationship" with Israel as "sacred",
adding that it would continue regardless of a Palestinian unity government or
any disagreements with Israel.
This, and his insistence that the new government will adhere
to non-violence, contrasts with statements by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who
has said that the reconciliation deal "aims to unite the Palestinian
people against the prime enemy, the Zionist enemy", and that "it aims
to pursue the choice of resistance in all forms".
The UN, the EU, and the US choose to ignore or discount the glaringly
obvious fact that Hamas defiantly remains what it has always been – an
Islamist, terrorist organization intent on supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s
subversion of the new Egyptian administration, and of pursuing the so-called
armed struggle against Israel. It has
chosen to associate itself with its prime internal enemy, the Fatah-led PA, for
its own reasons – doubtless hoping to participate, and to triumph, in the
forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, as a vital step towards
replacing the PA in the West Bank, just as it did in Gaza.
The New York Times, in an editorial on June 7, puts in a nutshell the dilemma
that the Obama administration has manoeuvred itself into. “The United States and other countries that consider Hamas a
terrorist group may find it impossible to continue aiding the Palestinians if
Hamas plays a more pronounced role,” it wrote, adding that the US “has to be
careful to somehow distinguish between its support for the new government and
an endorsement of Hamas and its violent, hateful behavior. To have some hope of
doing that, the United States and Europe must continue to insist that Mr. Abbas
stick to his promises and not allow Hamas to get the upper hand.”
It seems pretty obvious that this Fatah-Hamas unity deal, far
from representing reconciliation, is a façade that conceals as violent a fraternal
struggle for power and supremacy as ever.
Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line, 18 June 2014:
http://www.jpost.com/Experts/This-Palestinian-fa%C3%A7ade-359783
Published in the Eurasia Review, 14 June 2014:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/15062014-palestinian-facade-oped/
Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line, 18 June 2014:
http://www.jpost.com/Experts/This-Palestinian-fa%C3%A7ade-359783
Published in the Eurasia Review, 14 June 2014:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/15062014-palestinian-facade-oped/
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