A New Coalition for Palestinian Rivals
By JODI RUDOREN and MICHAEL R. GORDON
The deal between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization to form
a unity government came as hopes faded for a resolution to peace
negotiations with Israel.
Palestinian Rivals Announce Unity Pact, Drawing U.S. and Israeli Rebuke
JERUSALEM — The faltering Middle East peace process
was thrown into further jeopardy on Wednesday, with Israel and the
United States harshly condemning a new deal announced by feuding
Palestinian factions, including the militant group Hamas, to repair
their seven-year rift.
Israel
canceled a negotiating session scheduled for Wednesday night shortly
after leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization joined hands with
their rivals from Hamas at a celebratory ceremony in the Gaza Strip.
“Whoever
chooses Hamas does not want peace,” the Israeli prime minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement, describing the group as “a
murderous terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of
Israel.”
The
unity pact, coming days before the April 29 expiration date for the
American-brokered peace talks that have been the mainstay of Secretary
of State John Kerry’s tenure, surprised officials in Washington, which,
like Israel, deems Hamas a terrorist group and forbids direct dealings
with it. After months of intensive shuttle diplomacy in which Mr. Kerry staked his reputation on the peace process and even dangled the possibility of releasing an American convicted of spying
for Israel to salvage the lifeless talks, his spokeswoman, Jen Psaki,
called the Palestinian move “disappointing” and the timing “troubling.”
“Any
Palestinian government must unambiguously and explicitly commit to
nonviolence, recognition of the state of Israel, and acceptance of
previous agreements and obligations between the parties,” Ms. Psaki
said, citing conditions Hamas has repeatedly rejected. “It’s hard to see
how Israel can be expected to negotiate with a government that does not
believe in its right to exist.”
Hamas
and Fatah, the faction that dominates the P.L.O., have signed several
similar accords before that were not carried out, so it remained unclear
whether Wednesday’s deal promised a real resolution or a replay of an
old movie.
Some
analysts saw the step primarily as tactic by President Mahmoud Abbas of
the Palestinian Authority to pressure Israel to make concessions as the
clock winds down on extending the fraught negotiations.
He said in statement that “there is no contradiction at all” between
reconciliation and negotiation, adding, “We are totally committed to
establishing a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state
principle.”
Other
experts noted that Palestinian political conditions have drastically
changed since the signing of previous agreements, which could lead both
parties to make the compromises necessary to put this one into action.
Hamas has been in a deep political and economic crisis since the
military-backed government took over Egypt last summer and largely cut
ties with Gaza. Mr. Abbas, at 79, is looking for a legacy and an exit
strategy.
Reconciliation is deeply resonant among Palestinians and could revive the president’s sagging popularity.
“It’s
not bad for both sides — it is bad for the peace process,” said Shimrit
Meir, an Israeli analyst of Palestinian politics and editor of The
Source, an Arabic news website. “It is simply rude, in diplomatic
language, when Kerry is doing his last heroic effort to save the peace
process, to reward it with reconciliation with a terrorist group. I
think this is a message, and it’s very blunt.”
Beyond
the damage to the peace talks, joining forces with Hamas could cost the
Palestinians millions of dollars in financial aid from the United
States and Europe, and prompt a host of retaliatory actions by Israel.
Even
as the deal was being announced, there were other signs of tension. An
Israeli airstrike hit northern Gaza, apparently missing the militant on a
motorcycle it was aiming for and wounding 12 Palestinians, including
two children, according to Gaza health officials. Later Wednesday
evening, two rockets fired from Gaza landed in open areas of southern
Israel.
The
schism between Hamas and Fatah began in 2007, with a brief but bloody
civil war that followed a failed unity government after Hamas’s victory
in 2006 Palestinian elections. It left Palestinian territory divided,
with Hamas ruling Gaza, the impoverished and isolated coastal expanse,
and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority governing the larger and
more populous West Bank.
Dreams of reconciliation have been repeatedly dashed, after much-trumpeted agreements signed in Cairo in 2011 and Doha in 2012 were never carried out.
“Sorry
to say that we are familiar with such celebrations,” said Talal Okal, a
Gaza political analyst. “I hope that this time will be more serious,
but to be more serious is to go directly and quickly to the first step,
to let the people touch and see, not to hear only.”
On
Wednesday afternoon, after two days of meetings at the home of the
Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp,
the Palestinian leaders vowed to form a government of technocrats within
five weeks that would prepare for long-overdue elections six months
later.
“I announce to our people the news that the years of split are over,” Mr. Haniya said triumphantly.
Azzam
al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official who headed the P.L.O. delegation to
Gaza, said he hoped the deal would be “a true beginning and a true
partnership.”
Ziad
Abu Amr, deputy prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and a close
aide to Mr. Abbas, said the new deal came about because “the situation
has become more demanding and the pressures are rising.” He cited
Egypt’s frequent closing of the Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s gateway to
the world, which he said a technocratic government could reverse, as
well as domestic political concerns.
“It’s
a psychological and national issue that Palestinians feel they are
united,” Mr. Abu Amr said. “This split is hurting them.”
He
and other Palestinian leaders dismissed Israel’s threats and said
reconciliation was an internal matter, noting that the presence of
extreme right-wing members in Israel’s governing coalition had not
stopped Palestinians from participating in the peace talks. They also
pointed out that some Israeli leaders had questioned Mr. Abbas’s ability
to deliver a peace deal with Hamas controlling Gaza.
“Mr.
Netanyahu and his government were using Palestinian division as an
excuse not to make peace,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian
negotiator. “Now they want to use Palestinian reconciliation as an
excuse for the same purpose. This is utterly absurd.”
Israel’s
cabinet planned to meet Thursday to plan its next steps. Dore Gold, a
senior adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, called the Palestinian deal “a real
game changer,” and said, “You cannot have a serious peace process with
Hamas inside.”
Tzipi Livni, Israel’s chief negotiator, said the reconciliation was a “very problematic development.”
Some
Washington-based Middle East experts, who had long thought Mr. Kerry’s
efforts to be an uphill struggle given the yawning gaps between Israeli
and Palestinian positions on fundamental issues, said Wednesday’s
developments boded ill.
Aaron
David Miller, a former State Department peace negotiator, said Mr.
Abbas had “bought peace at home in exchange for significant tensions
with the Israelis” and called the move “one more nail to a peace-process
coffin that is rapidly being closed.”
Dennis
B. Ross, another former American peace envoy, said that the move could
make Mr. Abbas “less susceptible to a domestic backlash for continuing
the process with the Israelis,” but that “the timing is very problematic
— when the process is already faltering, this could be a body blow.”
Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy
at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the implications
depended on the precise terms of the reconciliation, which have yet to
be revealed.
“If,
and it is a big ‘if,’ Hamas comes under the P.L.O. umbrella in such a
way that it accedes to the P.L.O.’s recognition of Israel and the
P.L.O.’s signed agreements with Israel,” she said, “that would be
historic.”
“What
would make it horrible is if Hamas were to join the P.L.O. without
those kinds of commitments,” Ms. Wittes added. “Then it calls into
question the P.L.O.’s commitments that it has already made.”
COPY http://www.nytimes.com
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