In the reconciliation of Fatah and Hamas: Where is Israel?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

Anyone who believes in the Palestinian cause and the right of the Palestinian people must welcome every effort to end the division between Hamas and Fatah Movements, and which turned into a project of Palestinian – Palestinian civil war for more than once, and offered important services to the occupation project, the least of them was the military exclusive domination on Gaza and the humiliated exclusive domination in negotiation on Fatah, as well as the double –dealing with the contradictions. Despite the sticking to the national standards that are related to the main cause and how to approach it, it is necessary to estimate any political convergence or separation, where the demise of the division between the West Bank and Gaza is a great gain to the Palestinian cause whatever were the ceilings of the political meeting between Fatah and Hamas even if they were less than the resistance choice and its requirements. The position here is as the position towards protecting the civil peace in Lebanon, even if it was under sectarian ceilings and sharing positions and gains, because it grants some purity to the political life, stops shedding blood, and keeps the attention to the most important issues, so as every debate of the political ceiling is not a refusal of the reconciliation, as every support of it is not a blank acceptance of the content of the political understanding and its function.

There were many elements that contribute in the relation, tension, division, dialogue, and reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah most importantly is the Egyptian position, Qatar’s crisis with the Gulf and Egypt, and the decline of the regional presence of the Muslim Brotherhood where Hamas has put all of its importance to exaggerate it for a period of time, for its sake it abandoned its distinctive position in the axis of the resistance and its relation with its forces starting from Syria towards Iran and Hezbollah. Despite the reconciliation  for which Hamas is proceeding it tried to  contain all the tracks which were destroyed by the Muslim Brotherhood, most notably are the tracks of the relation with the forces of the resistance and the relation with Fatah and Egypt, it seems surrealistic to a high extent in politics , because these two tracks collide with the major choices according to what is required and needed from Hamas by these two tracks, but the objective contexts must make one of the two tracks secondary and the other is main, or one of them is a track of public relations and the other is a track of major choices, or one of them is tactical and the other is strategic. Maybe as many said, that each of the two tracks are for a choice that satisfies a team in Hamas, waiting for the other developments of drawing rules of conflict with the main concerned player, namely the occupation whether towards settlements or resistance.

The attempts of reconciliation are taking place regionally and internationally, on one hand the settlements background has everyday a new progress through Russian-American understanding which seems wider and more comprehensive than before. France seems on the bank which is related to the future of the conflict with Israel, on the other hand, there are Israeli threats of forthcoming war, maneuvers, preparations, and escalation in the political rhetoric towards the future of the negotiation with the Palestinian Authority, furthermore, there is a steady progress in the position of the axis of the resistance, the sources of its force, and its victories, all of that is in the light of the  decline in the political and the military US  status in the region, along with an apparent clear Russian progress. This confusion puts the Palestinian reconciliation which Hamas’s initiative of the abandonment of Gaza government played a crucial role in its birth, as it puts the relationship between Hamas and the axis of the resistance after the initiative of Hamas in a position in which Hamas  is getting prepared for a new stage in the region, that is related to the future of the Palestinian cause whether war or settlements, and its readiness to open up to the two choices according to the balance in its new leading form between the political bureau and its new leadership, the leadership of Al-Qassam, forces and the presidency of Hamas organization in Gaza, so Hamas will have a decision for every choice Haniyeh or Sinwar!.

Egypt and France are on the line of the American-Russian intersection of settlements; one of them is handling the file of the Palestinian- Israeli negotiation, and the other is handling the file of the Palestinian reconciliation in the light of increasing Israeli concern of the growing resources of power of the axis of resistance and the inability to find a military equivalent or political deterrence. This is the outcome of the Israeli visits to each of Washington and Moscow. In exchange of this growing concern there are advices to Israel to go to comprehensive settlement to possess an immunity of not being exposed to the risk of war. These advices as the guarantees in case of the full settlement are American and Russian. They are Russian by preventing a war and American by ensuring the superiority in it. This Russian – American movement which is going to be held in Paris needs a preparation in the region, where the most complicated demands are Palestinian. The Palestinian reconciliation will be held in Cairo. As Israel is suggesting a war without answering the inquires about a settlement, the sponsors will not object if the Palestinians have a bilateral of the negotiating ability and the ability to resist till the Israeli image becomes clear.

The ceiling which regionally and internationally raised to a settlement for the Palestinian cause under the title of Palestinian state on the occupied territories in 1967 and which its capital is the Eastern Jerusalem has been achieved due to the victories of the axis of resistance and their changing of the international and regional balances which surround the conflict with Israel, especially in Syria. Hamas and Fatah have accepted that settlement for a long time. During the path of the settlement in Syria and the Israeli concern of its consequences and conditions there are those who say that when the settlement of Syria starts, it will open the path of comprehensive settlement in the region, after it was proven that Israel is unable to translate the suggestion of war into a real war. The compensation which was desired by Israel and Saudi Arabia, after the settlement had included an improvement of the conditions and the situations of the forces of the axis of resistance was the formation of the Kurdish state, but it does not seem that Iraq, Turkey, and Iran are moving as the Kurds, the Israelis, and the Saudis wish.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,