New alliance seeks to seize initiative

ANALYSIS:Upheavals in Cairo and Damascus have given impetus to Palestinians to form united front

IF FAITHFULLY implemented, the Palestinian unity accord celebrated yesterday in Cairo will be a monumental achievement. This agreement has not only set Palestinians on the road to reconciliation but has also launched a process of realigning regional powers.

The deal could be a turning point for the fractious and factional Palestinians who, like other colonised peoples, have preferred fighting each other to focusing on enemies who deny them self-determination. It is significant that all 13 Palestinian factions are for the first time committed to reunification.

The antagonism between the two main factions that has divided the Palestinian people predates the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007 by 20 years. Fatah, the dominant Palestinian faction, did not welcome the birth of Hamas during the first intifada (1987-1993). Initially, Israel encouraged the emergence of Hamas as a means to counter Fatah and divide the Palestinian resistance. This created bad blood between the two movements and their adherents.

The rift deepened when Hamas rejected the peace process launched by the first Oslo accord signed on the White House lawn in September 1993.

At that time Fatah, which negotiated the deal in secret, was heralded as the victor in the long, hard struggle to achieve Palestinian statehood. The exiled leadership of Fatah, headed by Yasser Arafat, returned to the occupied territories, won elections and began to build the infrastructure of a state. Hamas was sidelined. Unfortunately, the peace process did not lead to Israeli withdrawal from East Jerusalem, the West Bank or Gaza but to the redoubling of Israel’s efforts to plant settlers there.

When the second intifada erupted in 2000, all factions took up arms.

Israel responded by cracking down on the West Bank and Gaza. Fatah was blamed for the failure of the peace process and castigated for mis-management and corruption, prompting Palestinian voters to return a Hamas majority to parliament in 2006. Under strong US and Israeli pressure, Fatah refused to accept defeat and rejected co-operation with Hamas.

When a Fatah strongman attempted to seize control of the strip in June 2007, his forces were routed by Hamas, which established its rule there, isolating Gaza from the West Bank where Fatah administers Palestinian enclaves.

This brief history explains why hostility between these factions has been extremely difficult to overcome and why antagonism could yet blight the reconciliation process.

There are, however, several factors that could make success more likely now than when earlier attempts were made. President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah relied for Arab support on Egypt’s ousted and disgraced ruler Hosni Mubarak but Egypt’s new regime has denounced his policy of co-operating with Israel and the US that fostered the Fatah-Hamas rift and ostracised Hamas.

Turmoil in Syria, host of Hamas’s politburo, has made the movement more compromising while the rise of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas’s parent organisation – has given Hamas an ally in Cairo.

Israel’s continuing settlement building has torpedoed the US administration’s efforts to bring about the birth of a Palestinian state and destroyed the leverage Israel and the US had with Fatah.

Unable to deliver a state through negotiations, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority plans to ask for international recognition of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza during the UN General Assembly session in the autumn. For this appeal to have credibility, the Palestinians must be united.

By brokering a new Palestinian unity accord, Egypt has broken with Israel and the US and reclaimed leadership of the divided Arab front. Cairo sacrificed this position when it signed a separate peace with Israel in 1979.

Thanks to the mass uprisings of the Arab Spring, other Arab governments in the pro-US camp are under popular pressure to fall into line behind Egypt. Syria and Iran, critics of the Mubarak regime, will be obliged to follow suit, particularly since Cairo and Tehran have reconciled. Turkey – which aspires to play a key role in regional affairs – is also involved in Palestinian reconciliation.

The reactivation of the Arab front led by Egypt and bolstered by Turkey and Iran – once US allies – would leave Israel more isolated than ever and wreck US regional policy, which has depended on persuading the Arabs to make peace with Israel on its terms rather than pressing Israel to make peace with the Arabs on theirs.