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http://www.aaiusa.org/dr-zogby/entry/the-us-should-accept-palestinian-unity/Dr. Zogby: The US Should Accept Palestinian Unity
Monday April 28, 2014
While Palestinians celebrated the reconciliation
agreement signed between Fateh and Hamas, the reactions in Washington
and Israel were reminiscent of the biblical "weeping and gnashing of
teeth."
American political commentators were dumbfounded by the
news of the pact, terming it "a dark day", "a setback for peace," or "a
serious complication." Members of Congress, meanwhile, were uniform in
their threats to withhold aid if the Palestinian Authority goes forward
with the unity arrangement.
Israeli government reactions were predictably harsh in
their criticism of the Palestinian move. Those on the far right, who
never supported the "peace process" in the first place and who had
threatened to abandon the Netanyahu government if he signed any
agreement with the Palestinians, saw the Fateh/Hamas pact as
justification to call for an immediate end to the peace negotiations. I
detected more joy than anger in their overly-heated pronouncements.
Prime Minister Netanyahu had undoubtedly the most disingenuous line of
the day, asking of PA President Mahmoud Abbas "does he want peace with
Hamas or peace with Israel?"— as if to suggest that "peace with Israel"
was actually in the offing but for Abbas' "disappointing" decision.
Putting aside all these displays of faux anger and
misplaced regret, the Palestinians are right to celebrate.
Reconciliation and national unity are not only good, in and of
themselves, they are necessary if there is to be a lasting
Israeli-Palestinian peace.
In the first place, the Palestinian people desperately
want this unity in order to put their political house in order. They
know that they have no viable future living in two captive Bantustans.
In the face of continued existential challenges, the public has been
demoralized by their squabbling fractured leadership. Increasingly
frustrated with their divided leaders' failure or inability to bring an
end to occupation, there has been a growing sense that unity would
provide a solution. In a world that was out of control, healing their
internal division was the one thing they felt they could control.
Unity,
of course, is not magical and will not, by itself, produce
independence. But the public's instinct was nevertheless right in
understanding that unity, on the right terms, would be essential for
independence.
It is also important to understand the degree to which
the leaderships of both the PA and Hamas were facing challenges to their
legitimacy. During the past seven years, Hamas had made a mess of their
rump "statelet" in Gaza. Their indiscriminate rocket fire and
deplorable use of suicide bombers, which they bizarrely termed
"resistance", had only served to damage the Palestinian movement and
image. At the same time, this behavior and the insecurity it created
among Israelis had empowered Israeli hardliners enabling them to impose
cruel collective punishment that brought increased suffering to the
entire Gaza Strip.
Hamas, reduced to badly managing an impoverished
population, was facing growing dissatisfaction with both their ideology
and their governance. Polls now show that this once popular Islamic
movement had a significantly diminished support-base.
The Palestinian Authority, thanks to Israeli ill-will
and intransigence has fared no better. They had made a strategic
decision to pursue a non-violent path to liberation by cooperating with
the US and negotiating with Israel. Their reward: they became
financially dependent on the US and Israel; they were repeatedly
humiliated by aggressive and acquisitive Israeli settlement expansion;
and they continued to be subjected to Israel's efforts to impose its
will on their every move. As a result, the Palestinian public had become
increasingly cynical, despairing of the possibility of peace.
And so in the face of a new breakdown in negotiations,
Israel's refusal to deliver on a promised release of prisoners, and the
announcement of yet another expansion of settlements, Palestinians
turned instead to heal their divided polity.
From what we know of the terms of the Fateh/Hamas pact,
it provides for the establishment of a national unity government of
technocrats. This government will serve for several months preparing for
national elections. The agreement also empowers President Abbas to
continue negotiations and endorses his leadership in seeking a two-state
solution that provides for peace between Israel and an independent
Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in East
Jerusalem.
While Israel has flat out rejected the reconciliation,
the success of this effort to establish unity will depend on the US
response. Up until now, the Administration has not formally rejected the
agreement and has been somewhat circumspect in their comments. It would
be a fatal error if, without finding out the exact terms of the
reconciliation pact, the US were to have rejected it out of hand and
punish the PA. Likewise, it would be an enormous error if the US were to
force President Abbas to turn his back on the pact. This has happened
before. At this point, such a move would not be accepted by the
Palestinian public and would severely compromise the PA leadership.
If, as senior Palestinian spokesmen affirm, the terms of
the agreement comply with the well-known Quartet conditions, the US
would be well-advised to be supportive of the effort and insist that
Israel continue negotiations with a now-strengthened Abbas.
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