by AMIRA HASS
The deal was welcomed with celebrations by Palestinians in Gaza City SOURCE/BBC
While the Hamas and PLO delegations in Gaza were preparing to declare reconciliation on Wednesday, in Ramallah the diplomatic business of the “state of Palestine” was proceeding as usual. Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour arrived for a visit, meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and signing various economic, health and security cooperation agreements with PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.
Almost simultaneously, the Hamdallah government’s foreign minister, Riyad al-Malki, was meeting with his Austrian counterpart? Sebastian Kurz and at a joint press conference said the Palestinians were committed to continuing the talks with Israel beyond the original target date of April 29, and that Israel had nothing to fear from the internal Palestinian reconciliation, which would not undermine the talks. (These remarks came, of course, before Israel cancelled Wednesday’s planned meeting of the negotiating teams.)
The Palestinian news agency Wafa, which answers to the PLO Executive Committee headed by Abbas, reported the reconciliation agreement in a dry, businesslike fashion, while the Gaza government’s information department made a festive and emotional announcement. Wafa stressed that this was a deal “to begin implementing the agreements that the parties had reached in Cairo (2011) and in Doha (2012).” These two agreements had been preceded by efforts at reconciliation between 2008 and 2010, and came close to being implemented in the weeks following Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza in the fall of 2012. But in all those earlier rounds, the various committees tasked with implementing the deals’ provisions became deadlocked, and hostile language returned to the discourse between the two sides.
This latest round of Palestinian reconciliation, like those before it, was the result of several honest if contradictory motivations, as well as political realities. The Palestinian public and its two rival factions – Hamas and Fatah – understand that the internal rift serves Israel first and foremost, and that the disconnect between Gaza and the West Bank is congruent with Israeli policies. The vast majority in Fatah and all the other PLO member groups are convinced that a fair agreement signed by Israel of its own free will is no longer possible. Only Abbas and some of his close associates continue to believe in negotiating.
The reconciliation, therefore, is a way to strengthen the Palestinians internally in preparation for the next confrontations with Israel (popular, diplomatic, political, and perhaps even military, if and when Israel chooses the military escalation option).
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(Thanks to Feroz Mehdi)