MIDDLE EAST: Fatah and Hamas yesterday agreed on a plan for statehood which implicitly recognises Israel, limits resistance attacks to the West Bank, and calls for the creation of a national unity government. Michael Jansen reports.
The breakthrough came as Israel massed troops on its border with the Gaza Strip in response to the capture of an Israeli soldier during a Palestinian cross-frontier raid on Sunday. Palestinian sources say the threat of an imminent attack by Israel compelled the sides to close ranks and achieve agreement.
The 18-point initiative was put forward in May by four Palestinian prisoners representing Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and endorsed by President Mahmoud Abbas, who said he would call for a referendum on the plan if Hamas did not accept it by July 26th.
The plan reasserts the Palestinian demand for a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967 - 22 per cent of geographic Palestine. The 78 per cent of the country captured by Israel in 1948-49, would, therefore, be recognised as belonging to the Jewish state. By signing on to the prisoners' plan, Hamas not only joined the mainstream Palestinian national movement but also, de facto, abrogated its own charter which calls for the emergence of an Islamic state in the whole of Palestine.
While reiterating the Palestinian right to resist Israeli occupation, the initiative calls for unified action by all factions and limits attacks to the occupied areas, now the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This means that militants from Hamas and Fatah are obliged to stop firing rockets from Gaza into the Negev and end suicide bombings and other armed attacks in the rest of Israel.
The acceptance by both Hamas and Fatah of the need for a national unity government amounts to a reversal of policy by both. Following its election vic- tory in the January parliamentary poll, Hamas called upon Fatah and other parties to join in such a coalition but Fatah refused and pressurised other groups not to participate. Once Hamas had formed a government, it decided not to share power.
The new government is likely to be made up largely of technocrats qualified to carry out the wide-ranging reforms required to restore the credibility of the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas has also agreed to join the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the umbrella group dominated by Fatah, has accepted there will be negotiations with Israel and agreed that these will be conducted by the PLO and chaired by Mr Abbas. Hamas's former policy was to accept a long-term truce with Israel and negotiate only after Israel pulls out of all land occupied in 1967.
Accord was reached after a month of acrimonious negotiations that split both Fatah and Hamas. Mainstream Fatah members and its "young guard" supported the document. But many disaffected members of the unruly Fatah militia, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, rejected the initiative and found common cause with elements of the Hamas military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam.
Furthermore, the Damascus-based Hamas politburo, headed by Khaled Mishaal, opposed the plan which was accepted by the pragmatic leadership in Gaza, led by prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.
The prisoners' plan does not fully satisfy the three demands put forward by the quartet comprising the US, EU, UN and Russia, which insist that Hamas recognises Israel, halts violence, and accepts previous agreements. But the adoption of this plan is significant progress.
Once a national government is formed, foreign donors should be able to resume budgetary support to the Palestinian Authority so it can resume salary payments and services.