After four months of sustained and determined political efforts, Egypt successfully drove both Fatah and Hamas to seal an accord of national Palestinian reconciliation Thursday, 12 October, in Cairo. The accord has not dealt with all the major issues between the two Palestinian movements as stated in the Cairo reconciliation agreement of 4 May 2011, but has provided for a partial roadmap to jump-start the Palestinian national unity government. According to what was agreed upon last Thursday, this government should be in place by 1 December 2017, and Hamas promised that it would cooperate fully with the Egyptian side to fulfil this goal. A meeting is scheduled next month for all Palestinian factions in Cairo, in order to get their support for the accord, and to make sure that they will not do anything that could derail it.
The accord is partial because the most difficult questions between Fatah and Hamas have been postponed to a later stage. These include presidential and parliamentary elections in both Gaza and the West Bank, the restructuring of the Palestinian security apparatus in all Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank), the future of the Ezzeddin Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and the restructuring of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
The Cairo accord received, expectedly, large Palestinian and Arab support, as well as the support of the UN secretary-general. The European Union, meanwhile, welcomed a chance to provide the Gaza Strip with much-needed humanitarian assistance. Nonetheless, some European diplomats and
officials raised questions about the ability of the next national unity government to control the military wing of Hamas.
The United States had already expressed support for Egyptian efforts to seal the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas. In remarks after meeting President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi in New York last month, President Donald Trump welcomed the result of such efforts, two days after Hamas announced that it was ready to hand over political authority in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. Last Thursday, the spokesperson for the US State Department, Heather Nauwert, reaffirmed this position by stressing that the United States “welcome the effort for the conditions for the Palestinian Authority to fully assume responsibilities in Gaza”. From an American point of view, the accord between the two Palestinian factions is considered “an important step to getting the humanitarian aid to the people who live there”.
According to the State Department spokesperson, Washington is “going to watch developments very closely”, and will “press the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and also international donors to try to get improved the humanitarian situation in Gaza”.
American chief negotiator for the Middle East, Jason Greenblat, had called 30 August on the Palestinian Authority to exercise, once again, political authority and control in the Gaza Strip. Such American support is a much-needed boost for Egyptian policy, and for ensuring that the Cairo accord holds, which remains a challenging task.
On the other hand, a benevolent position in Washington would help in neutralising Israeli attempts to sabotage the accord. It is no secret that the Israeli government has benefited from Palestinian division and the separation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It has been
playing off Hamas and the Palestinian Authority ever since Hamas evicted Fatah from the Strip in June 2007. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been claiming that Israel has no peace partner on the Palestinian side, and questioning, implicitly, the political legitimacy Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority. The success of Egyptian efforts to make the accord hold will make it harder for the Israeli government to cast doubt on the political ability of the Palestinian Authority to conduct peace talks with Israel, if and when American pressure to resume these talks bears fruit. It is expected that the Trump administration will come up with a concrete outline, in this respect, before the end of the year.
Bringing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under one political authority will definitely undermine Israeli policies to nip in the bud any peace initiative in order to hold the Palestinian occupied territories in the West Bank. Last week, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennet proposed a plan to apply Israeli laws on larger tracts of land in Zone C in the West Bank. That means annexing these lands to Israel proper, and, thus, scuttling for good the two-state solution. In fact, this is the Israeli strategy; namely, buying time to make sure that it can annex a large chunk of territories from the West Bank. The success of the political reunification of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would make it a lot harder for Netanyahu and his extremist partners in the ruling coalition to sell their arguments in the West. These facts, in fact, have been one of the reasons why Egypt has been so persistent in its efforts to reunite Fatah and Hamas.
The Israelis, and for tactical purposes, have lessened their adamant opposition to a Palestinian national unity government. When the intra-Palestinian talks were still in progress, Netanyahu said that Israel would never accept Palestinian reconciliation that would come at the expense of what he called “Israeli security”. He talked about his conditions for such an acceptance — conditions, in fact, making it impossible for something of the sort to happen. He asked Hamas to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, disarm the Ezzeddin Al-Qassam Brigades, and recognising the agreements that the Palestinians previously signed with Israel. His cabinet made a statement after the Palestinian accord was sealed in Cairo that the Israeli government would follow developments on the ground and act accordingly. Israeli security agencies believe that the return of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority to govern the Gaza Strip is in the security interests of Israel, even if it is partial control.
The Cairo accord does not put a definite and unequivocal end to Palestinian infighting, but it opens the way, however hazardous and uncertain, to normalise the political situation in the Strip as a first step towards an effective and enduring Palestinian reconciliation that would lead to a complete restructuring of Palestinian political life and the creation, hopefully, of one indivisible political authority in all Palestine.
For the Palestinians, there is no other way forward. As far as Egypt is concerned, this will go a long way towards defending its national security interests on its eastern borders.
- Hussein Haridy is a former assistant to the foreign minister.
