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Analysis: Palestinians Lurch Forward, Back

Council on Foreign Relations

September 25, 2006
Prepared by: Michael Moran

News of the collapse of yet another effort by the two dominant Palestinian factions, the governing terrorist group Hamas, and the struggling old-guard Fatah party, hardly causes a ripple in the international media these days. Israeli media followed the talks (Haaretz), of course. But no urgency seeped into the coverage. Even al-Jazeera, chronicler of incremental developments throughout the region, gave the collapse of “national unity” talks ho-hum play on its website, listing it alongside items such as a French hostage release in Yemen and Saddam Hussein’s ongoing genocide trial.

Yet there is still space, however slight, for dramatic moves that would open the door to a Palestinian national unity government—something both sides hope would result in a lifting of financial sanctions placed on the Palestinian Authority when Hamas won the January national elections. Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas parliamentarian, told al-Jazeera differences could still be worked out during talks scheduled with Palestinian President (and Fatah elder statesman) Mahmoud Abbas.

The Palestinian’s recent record on political compromise is dismal. After all, it was a raid by Hamas militants on an Israeli military post which derailed a mid-summer effort by Abbas to try to build a national unity government. The abduction of an Israeli soldier during the raid brought an invasion of Gaza. The Israeli action was less catastrophic than the subsequent pummeling of Lebanon but it left the already shaky Palestinian Authority in a shambles, Gaza largely reoccupied, and at least twenty-one Hamas parliamentarians, including several cabinet members, residing in Israeli military jails.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.