http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/954/eg1.htm 2 - 8 July 2009 Issue No. 954 Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Chasing reconciliation Dina Ezzat reports on the little progress made in pursuit of inter-Palestinian and Arab rapprochement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Again hopes for an end to the two-year-old internal Palestinian rift have been put off. The announced 7 July deadline for the signing of a Palestinian reconciliation agreement has been cancelled. A late July -- sometime between 25 and 28 July -- deadline is now on the table. But as one informed source said, "That, too, is not certain. It is tentative." Egypt has been working for over a year to bring about an end to the inter-Palestinian dispute that started in June 2007. Today, Egyptian officials report progress -- some suggest considerable progress. However, officials admit that "major" obstacles remain. By the account of one informed official, the real problem is that both Fatah -- in charge of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank -- and Hamas -- in control of Gaza -- "are manoeuvring". In the beginning, Egypt -- and other key Arab players including Saudi Arabia -- was of the opinion that Hamas was blocking reconciliation. Today, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are of the opinion that both Fatah and Hamas are not talking straight. One informed Arab diplomat told Al-Ahram Weekly that both Cairo and Riyadh have told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that they expect him to demonstrate leadership and not partisanship. During a recent abrupt meeting, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Abbas that he is not doing enough to encourage all parties to reach reconciliation. Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- whose leaders met twice during the week, on Sunday in Jeddah and on Tuesday in Sharm El-Sheikh -- have issued an ultimatum to Fatah and Hamas to resolve their differences by the end of this month. During their talks, sources say, President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah decided that stalling on both sides must end. Hamas, nonetheless, is determined that it will not sign on to a reconciliation deal unless Fatah ends arresting its activists in the West Bank. "What Abbas is doing when he orders the arrests of Hamas resistance elements is a service to the Israelis, and it is a free service because he is not getting anything in return," commented one Hamas official who spoke to the Weekly from Damascus. According to a Cairo-based Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Fatah wants Hamas to accept that the PA has uncontested say over all security matters. "We are not going to agree to the shared security management in Gaza and the West Bank that Hamas is insisting on," he said. As far as Cairo and Riyadh are concerned, delayed Palestinian reconciliation makes it difficult for the Arab-Israeli peace process to resume as the US administration of Barack Obama has proposed. "We don't want to lose the momentum, and we don't want the Israelis to convince Obama that it is difficult to resume peace talks with the Palestinians due to inter- Palestinian disputes," said one Egyptian diplomat. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are hoping to get both Syria and Qatar, which are close to Hamas, to exercise "positive influence" to give reconciliation a push. But this is proving difficult. Recent disputes between Cairo, Damascus and Doha complicate matters. Saudi Arabia, that has managed to contain its differences with Syria and, to a lesser degree, Qatar, has been mediating. Some progress is reported, but a breakthrough remains elusive. Indeed, Egyptian diplomats say that Arab reconciliation is increasingly crucial for Palestinian reconciliation. "We hope that when the US sends its new ambassador to Syria that this would encourage the Syrians to exercise positive influence with Hamas," said one Egyptian diplomat. He added, "but we are not sure about the Qataris." The dispute between Egypt and Qatar goes beyond the management of the Palestinian issue. Egypt and Qatar are also at loggerheads over the management of the crisis in Darfur. On Wednesday, President Mubarak absented himself from the African Summit that he had earlier planned to attend. Sources suggested that Mubarak's last minute cancellation was prompted by dissatisfaction at the level of Libyan support for an Egyptian plan to host Darfur's rebels later this month for a reconciliation meeting. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
