Hi. There’s now been a joint news conference announcing the
actual formation on the new entity. Today’s Democracy Now
interviews UCLA Prof. Saree Makdese on the issue. He brings
up the major problems facing a Palestinian government in an
occupied land, and the many issues of over half of Palestinians
living in exile. Nonetheless, it’s an important development.
Ed
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/world/middleeast/28mideast.html
Fatah and Hamas Announce Outline of Deal
By Isabel Kershner
NY Times: April 27, 2011
agreement in principle on Wednesday to end the years-long internal
Palestinian schism.
Taher Al-Nounou, a spokesman for the Hamas government in
sides had reached a preliminary agreement to form a transitional unity
government for the Palestinian territories to be followed by new elections
after a year. He said the leaders of Fatah and Hamas are expected to meet
within a week to sign a formal agreement.
At a press conference to announce the deal in
negotiators offered few details of the proposed transitional government,
saying it would be composed of neutral professionals and that the leaders of
each side would work out the details.
While the deal, reached after secret Egyptian-brokered talks, promised a
potentially historic reconciliation for the Palestinians,
a formal agreement would spell the end of the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process.
In a televised address on Wednesday, even before the Fatah-Hamas press
conference, the prime minister of
warning to the Palestinian Authority president and Fatah chief, Mahmoud
Abbas.
“The Palestinian Authority has to choose between peace with
with Hamas,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “Peace with both of them is
impossible, because Hamas aspires to destroy the state of
openly.”
The choice, he said, was in the authority’s hands.
The news comes as the so-called Arab Spring has shaken the
leading to the demise of two longtime autocrats and raising new fears in
the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak of
with
Relations between Fatah, the mainstream secularist movement led by the
Palestinian president, Mr. Abbas, and Hamas, the Islamic militant group,
have deteriorated since Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006. They
ruptured a year later when Hamas seized full control of the Gaza Strip, the
Palestinian coastal enclave, after a brief factional war, routing Fatah
forces there and limiting the influence of Mr. Abbas and his Palestinian
Authority to the
Asked why the deadlocked talks had come back to life, Mr. Nounou said, “The
will was there for everyone.” He also credited the new mediators from
put in place after that country’s revolution, with “an exemplary
performance,” including weeks of courtship at private meetings with each
side before they met face to face with each other for the first time today.
The tentative deal is the first sign that the recent upheaval in the region,
and specifically the Egyptian revolution, has reshuffled regional diplomacy.
Previously, efforts to reconcile the two Palestinian factions fell under the
jurisdiction of Mr. Mubarak’s right-hand man, Omar Suleiman. Although he
talked to both sides, he and the Egyptian government were considered openly
hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot, and deeply
committed to
Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at
University, said that the Palestinian Authority’s failure to reach an
agreement with
a United Nations Security Council resolution against Israeli settlement
construction in February encouraged Mr. Abbas’s Fatah party to come to an
agreement with Hamas. The Islamic group was motivated by changes in the
region, especially the revolt in
get closer to Fatah, he said.
The agreement appeared to catch the Obama administration, like many others,
by surprise. Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council,
said that the administration was seeking more information about the
agreement and its terms, but sharply warned that it considered Hamas a
terrorist organization that would not be a reliable partner in peace talks
with
“As we have said before, the
reconciliation on terms which promote the cause of peace,” Mr. Vietor said.
“Hamas, however, is a terrorist organization which targets civilians.”
He added that any Palestinian government had to accept certain principles
announced by international negotiators, including renouncing violence,
abiding by past agreements with the Israelis and recognizing
to exist. Hamas has never agreed to those conditions.
Before the press conference, Palestinian officials said Hamas and Fatah
agreed on three main issues that had thwarted previous rounds of talks aimed
at reaching a national reconciliation.
Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, told Al-Jazeera from
included the interim leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
the Palestinian umbrella organization from which Hamas has so far been
excluded; a tribunal for elections; and a deadline for elections. Mr. Zahar
said they were to be held within a year of the signing of the final
agreement, which is expected to take place in
Mr. Zahar added that Hamas and Fatah would together nominate the members of
the technocratic government and of the 12-judge elections’ tribunal.
He also said that an agreement was reached on another contentious issue,
control of the security services, but he did not elaborate. In November,
officials from the two movements met in
agreement due to differences on security.
Mr. Abbas has been pressing in recent months for reconciliation, under
popular pressure for national unity and ahead of plans to seek international
recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations this fall.
Successive rounds of Egyptian-brokered talks between the rival parties have
failed in past years. Last month, Mr. Abbas said that he was ready to go to
had already invited Mr. Abbas and Fatah to resume unity talks.
The last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks broke down soon after they
started last September when a temporary Israeli moratorium on construction
in
to get the sides to resume negotiations, and Mr. Netanyahu has recently been
considering making some kind of offer to the Palestinian Authority to try to
preempt a United Nations vote, according to Israeli officials.
But Mr. Netanyahu made it clear on Wednesday that he would not deal with Mr.
Abbas and the Palestinian Authority if it took the route of national unity
with Hamas.
Hamas, Mr. Netanyahu said, “Fires rockets at our cities and anti-tank
missiles at our children,” referring to a recent attack by Hamas militants
on a school bus in
“I think the very idea of the reconciliation shows the weakness of the
Palestinian Authority, and leads one to wonder whether Hamas will take
control over Judea and
using the biblical name for the
Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu instructed the Israeli military and
security establishment to take all necessary measures to ensure the
enforcement of
another international flotilla this spring. Mr. Netanyahu met with his
senior ministers and security officials and said that diplomatic efforts
should continue to prevent the flotilla from setting out, and that the
blockade was necessary to prevent weapons from being smuggled to militant
organizations in
Last May, Israeli naval commandos raided a flotilla that was trying to
breach the naval blockade of
on a Turkish vessel after violent confrontations broke out. The incident
stirred international outrage and caused a crisis in relations between
David D. Kirkpatrick and Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting from
Fares Akram from
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