After the failure of the Qatari initiative to help bring a
national unity government in the Palestinian territories, observers
could not help asking: what would happen if Hamas keeps refusing to
soften its stance on Israel?
Last week, Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad Ben Jassem al-Thani
arrived in Gaza and presented a six-point initiative aiming at
helping form a Palestinian coalition government with a political
platform that satisfies the Quartet Committee, so as to end the
siege imposed on the Palestinians and resume the peace process with
Israel.
But after marathon meetings with the Islamic Resistance Movement
(Hamas) leadership both in Syria and Gaza, as well as with
President Mahmoud Abbas, the Qatari official announced in a news
conference on Tuesday that Hamas rejected two key clauses in his
initiative: the recognition of Israel and renouncing violence.
Some Palestinians expressed worries that Hamas' rejection of
such efforts might make the Palestinians continue to suffer from
the sanctions or even lead the territories into a civil war.
Efforts by President Abbas have so far failed to convince Hamas
to meet the international community's requirements of recognizing
Israel, renouncing violence and respecting previous agreements
signed with Israel in order to end the crises faced by the
Palestinians in the West bank and the Gaza Strip.
Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haneya of Hamas reached an
initial agreement on forming a coalition government to replace the
incumbent Hamas-led one in an effort to end an economic and
political crisis triggered by the West and Israel's cutting off of
direct aid due to the ruling Hamas' refusal to meet the three major
conditions.
However, the talks was deadlocked as Hamas remained adamant on
its stance of refusing to recognize Israel.
So where is the crux of the problem? Analysts say that the two
sides had yet to find a language that might leave room regarding
the basic issue of recognizing of Israel but yet could satisfy the
West.
Hamas has repeatedly stated that it would not accept anything
that explicitly confers recognition of Israel.
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If the Hamas movement recognizes Israel, this means that Hamas will
reach its end and it will turn into nothing but a traditional
organization like other factions, said Khalil Ghurab, a Palestinian
academic from Gaza.
He added that if Hamas recognizes Israel, this would
automatically break up its fundamental ideology that it was
established on, and would erase the military achievements it made
during 19 years of armed struggle against Israel in the West Bank
and Gaza since its foundation in 1987.
Hamas has also refused to recognition of past peace deals with
Israel.
When Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chaired by late
leader Yasser Arafat signed the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords
with Israel, after Israel and the PLO exchanged recognition, the
Hamas movement opposed the mutual recognition and the Oslo accords,
vowing to oppose the accords violently.
Hamas refused even to join the first ever legislative elections
held in the Palestinian territories in January 1996, saying these
elections are an outcome of the rejected Oslo accords and Hamas
wouldn't join it.
After ten years, Hamas changed its decision and decided to join
the legislative elections held in the West Bank, Gaza and East
Jerusalem in January 2006, but maintained that the interim peace
accords had expired and Hamas only join the elections because it
believed in the "political partnership".
What the movement wants is only a truce with Israel. The
movement had expressed willingness to agree with Israel, through a
third party, on a long-term truce, which could be ten years, more
or less.
Hamas won the elections and formed the current Hamas government.
Because it keeps the original stance against Israel after took
government power from President Abbas' Fatah movement, the West and
Israel have imposed sanctions on the Hamas-led government, cutting
off financial aid to it.
The political and economic crisis have caused great sufferings
for Palestinians. There have been tensions between supporters of
President Abbas's Fatah party and the ruling Hamas movement and one
after another strikes by civil servants over non-payment of
wages.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, also a senior aid to
Abbas, said Wednesday that the Hamas-led government had to accept
Israel for the sake of the Palestinian people, though the Hamas
movement, as a political faction, did not have to do so.
Abbas also asked Hamas to honor interim peace deals with the
Jewish state.
In the initial agreement between Abbas and Haneya, the two sides
agreed to form a unity government on the basis of the Prisoners'
Document of National Accordance, drafted by prominent Palestinian
prisoners in Israeli jails, which calls for a Palestinian statehood
alongside Israel and a truce with Israel to end the ongoing
violence in the Palestinian territories.
Hamas had rejected the document in the beginning, but accepted
it after President Abbas threatened to go for a popular referendum
on it.
However, though the two sides agreed on most of the document's
text, Hamas expressed reservation on the clause related to
accepting the Arab peace initiative. The initiative, issued in an
Arab Summit held in Beirut in 2002, clearly recognized the state of
Israel.
Haneya has clearly stated that his government would not accept
the Arab peace initiative, "because it carries in between the lines
a recognition of the state of Israel."
Some Palestinian analysts believe that the Palestinians in Gaza
and the West Bank are facing two options if the situation continues
like this.
"We either accept forming a national coalition government or go
for endless civil war," said political analysts Tawfeeq
Ramadan.
Yasser Abed Rabbo of the Palestinian Liberation Organization
(PLO) on Tuesday said that the Qatari plan was the final effort
that, if failed, would be altered with early elections.
In that case, a referendum would be called to give President
Abbas popular permission to call early polls.
Abbas himself said that if Hamas movement keeps rejecting
initiatives and keeps behaving like it just wants to impose its
agenda on the world, he has his own options.
Nabil Amro, an aid to Abbas said that one of these options is to
form a technocrat government, adding "the other is to form a
one-year-emergency government and then to go for presidential and
legislative elections."
However, many Palestinians fear that if any of these options are
taken by Abbas without coordination with the Hamas-led movement,
"the Palestinians would go for a civil war".
Abbas was likely to make a decision after the end of the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan later this month, his aides said.
(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2006)
