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Palestinians to Form Unity Government
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
May 31, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Expected to bury the hatchet and join hands in a
unity government Monday, June 2, Fatah’s 78-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas and
51-year-old Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh have agreed to a unity government. Split since Hamas seized the Gaza
Strip June 14, 2007, Haniyeh has tried to go it alone, trying desperately to run
the Hamas government with dwindling international support. Running Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization from Ramallah, Abbas offered a
way out of the seemingly endless war with Israel, giving the so-called “quartet”
of United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia an opportunity to
lay down a blueprint for Mideast peace.
While established at the Madrid Conference Oct. 25, 2001, they haven’t
succeeded in negotiating Mideast peace between Israel and the Palestinians, in
part because Hamas broke off from Fatah in 2007.
U.S. and EU officials essentially bypassed Hamas negotiating directly
with Abbas’ Ramallah-based government over the last seven years. Most Mideast experts see the unity government as undermining the peace process because
Hamas hasn’t formally ended its war with Israel or accepted past peace
agreements. Instead of viewing the
June 2 unity agreement as a positive sign, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu believes Israel has lost a peace partner. While Hamas talks tough threatening
more war with Israel, it’s also possible that joining the PLO would force Hamas
to abide by existing peace agreements.
Netanyahu and his 55-year-old right wing Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman believe the new unity government sabotages any chance of peace because
of Hamas. By joining the PLO, Hamas
is forced to abide by previous and existing treaty agreements with Israel.
Since Hamas broke off from the PLO in 2007, the U.S. had no real peace
partner because any agreement involved only half the Palestinians. Yet the U.S. State Department under
Secretary of State John Kerry applied maximum pressure on Jerusalem to make a
deal. Netanyahu resisted making concessions when he knew that any peace agreement wouldn’t
apply to Hamas. While the
Ramallah-based Abbas ripped Netanyahu for continued settlement construction in
what Palestinians regard as sovereign territory in East Jerusalem and the West
Bank, Abbas knows that it’s to his advantage to let Israel keep building. Any
final settlement, like what happened in 2005 when the late Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon turned Gaza back to Palestinians, would included any
infrastructure built by Israel. Abbas knows that Israeli construction is only a good thing when negotiating for a new
state.
Receiving about $100 million a month in tax revenue from Israel, Abbas
worried that Israel would pull the plug on payments because of the new unity
deal with Hamas. Israeli officials
worry that Palestinians would resume suicide bombing inside Israel once Hamas
joins the PLO. “They are going to
withhold our money,” Abbas told pro-Palestinians activists in France. “This is our money, not aid from
Israel, and we will not stay silent.
They want to punish us because we have and agreement with Hamas, which is
part of our people,” said Abbas, trying to stave off any Israeli action. “We say [the government] is
going to recognize Israel, denounce violence and recognize the international
agreements,” said Abbas, reassuring the quartet that the joint-Fatah-Hamas
entity is committed to the peace process.
Israeli officials haven’t caught up with positive developments.
Israeli officials need to process the latest development of a unity
government as a positive step in the peace process. Haniyeh know that Gaza stands to
gain added revenue by joining Abass’s donor-rich Palestinian Authority. His isolation in Gaza, especially
since the July 3, 2013 fall of Egypt’s first elected leader 63-year-old,
U.S.-educated Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi. Since incarcerating Morsi for
treason, the military government of Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi no longer backs
Gaza’s Hamas government. Egypt’s
military government has shut down many of the tunnels that smuggled arms into
the Gaza Strip. Circumstances in
Gaza grew so dire its prompted Haniyeh to join Fatah to share in abundant PLO
revenues. Joining Abbas’s
government enables Hamas to live to buy more time in the remote outpost once a
part of Egypt before the 1967 War.
U.S. and Israeli officials need to urgently recalculate the importance of
the peace process of Palestinians’ new unity government. Calling the unity government “a
great leap backwards,” a senior Israeli official refuses to see the sliver
lining of having Hamas join the PLO.
Because Abbas insists that the combined entity recognizes Israel, there’s
no need for Netanyahu to insist Palestinians to accept Israel as a Jewish state. Monday’s unity deal provides Israel
a real opportunity to make peace with one, unified Palestinian state. Once Hamas
joins Fatah and the PLO, it no longer matters what’s in the Hamas charter. Abbas knows that the only path to
peace is through Jerusalem, not the U.N.
He knows that bypassing Israel and going directly to the U.N. for
statehood would be vetoed in the U.N. Security Council by the U.S. Amb. Samantha
Powers. Palestinians best hope for
statehood is a deal with Israel.
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