Finally, there are signs of a rapprochement between Hamas and Fatah groups in Palestine.
It will be premature to guess where the current efforts will lead, considering the past failures in reconciliation attempts, but if the moves for unity succeed, it will be the best thing to happen to the Palestinians struggle for independence and can bring revolutionary changes to their struggle for freedom.
The reason is that a lack of unity and the bitter enmity between Hamas and Fatah has been one of the biggest impediments to the realization of Palestinian dreams, a situation which Israel has been exploiting, and to a large extent abetting, to its advantage.
Hamas said in a statement yesterday that it has agreed to a number of steps to end the long-running feud with its rival Fatah. It has agreed to hold talks, dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections to pave the way for a Palestinian unity government.
Hamas called it “a courageous, serious and patriotic decision to dissolve the administrative committee” that runs the territory of two million people, while Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the move, saying he would convene a meeting of leaders for discussions upon his return from New York where he is attending the UN General Assembly.
Both sides have taken the primary step, and now the complex issue of power-sharing needs to be addressed. Fatah and Hamas will require plenty of determination and an extraordinary willingness to make concessions to make the current plan work. This is because a plan to form a national reconciliation administration in 2014 did not succeed because both sides could not agree on the details.
Fatah and Hamas must realise that their enmity and the divisions they have sown in the Palestinian society have been one of the biggest impediments to the fulfillment of Palestinian dreams. Instead of uniting against their common enemy, which is united against them, they spent their time and energy trying to weaken the other and consolidate their power.
The current reconciliation bid must be the result of a realization that they have wasted precious time fighting each other, during which period Benjamin Netanyahu effectively killed the peace process and grabbed the remaining Palestinian land. It’s rare in history that a people fighting for freedom are so disunited.
Israel is expected to do everything to scupper the unity bid as it had done in the past because it will be the biggest loser. As usual, Netanyahu will say that the unity will promote terror and will harm the peace process which he has already killed.
Hamas and Fatah must overcome their differences and not fall prey to the machinations of Netanyahu.
