Well, they're still discussing things, so there's no final agreement yet between the
two sides, but as you know, there's been discord between the two sides for the past
ten years, at least, with one side, Hamas, basically running the show in one part of
the occupied territories, that's to say Gaza, and with the other side, that's to say the
PA controlled by Qatar, running the show in West Bank, and this agreement started almost
ten years ago, one year after the elections that took place back then, which produced
Hamas as a majority, and the fact that it became the majority did not sit well with
the international community, and there were, therefore, problems, and resort to violence
in order to transform the situation, and the PA took over in the West Bank, and Hamas
took over in Gaza, so that for the past ten years, there's been this discord, West Bank
and Gaza, as you know, are not geographically connected anyway, and so they basically developed
as two separate entities over the past ten years, now, in addition to this, there have
been problems between Gaza and Israel, which were not the same as the situation between
the West Bank and Israel, so over the past ten years we saw rockets being fired at Israel,
we saw Israel invading Gaza twice, and we saw the economy of Gaza, or in Gaza, being
devastated, and really the conditions becoming more difficult and harsher for the people
in Gaza, and over the past few months, these conditions became even worse when the authority
in the West Bank, the PA, decided to stop subsidizing the Gaza leadership of Hamas,
both for oil, gas, that would run the electricity, as well as for the salaries of the employees
of the civil service, so really the situation was getting worse, so eventually they decided
there's always been, over the time, over the past ten years, there's always been pressure
from the people in the community to get the two leaderships to come to terms with one
another, to bring back unity between the people, but there were several attempts, they never
worked, so this time it seems was a time that people assume, they still assume, that the
talks will be successful, but it's not really clear yet, there are initial positive signs,
but it's not really clear where this will lead.
Well, several reasons, as I was saying earlier, the elections took place in the Palestinian
territories eleven years ago, now as a result of the elections, Hamas took the majority
of votes, and in theory, therefore, should have taken over the government of Palestine,
however, this was not something that the international community welcomed, why?
Because Hamas, as a party, as a political party, refuses to recognize the peace agreement
between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and have always basically said that they have
no interest in recognizing Israel as a state, so neither Israel on the one hand, nor the
international community, which was wanting or was donating funds to the Palestinians,
wanted to continue supporting that government, so there are problems at the time, and although
it is not very clear, but it is said that perhaps the PA tried to overthrow the Hamas
government, and the Hamas government, therefore, reacted by attacking the forces that were
loyal to the Palestinian authority, and assumed power by force, and the two sides, you know,
have different political platforms, and have not since that time been able to somehow manage
to run the, you know, the theater, the operation together.
They've tried, there have been several attempts, most recently in the past year, Hamas has
been making statements in Qatar, for instance, recently, which might be understood to mean
that they are prepared to play politics, and indeed they have, in fact, as a leadership
in Gaza, they have, it is known, been carrying out diplomatic or third level exchanges with
Israelis over security matters, and they've been trying, especially over the past few
years, maybe one or two years since the last invasion, they've been trying to control the
rockets being fired from Gaza and Israel, because they realize that they have to pay
a very high price if those rockets continue to come out from there.
But you know, so if you want to sum it up, you'd say there is a major political discord
between the platforms of Al-Fattah and Hamas, there is the problem that Israel is not very
happy, it's actually unhappy with the platform that Hamas represents, and there is the international
community, which is also unhappy, but that's all, you know, should be taken against the
backdrop of the fact that the Palestinian people, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank,
are single people, and so this kind of discord that's existed has actually had very negative
effects on the fabric of our society over the past 10 years.
Well, as you know, the party, the Arab country that's been in the forefront to try and get
this agreement going off the ground has been Egypt, and Egypt, as we know, has good relations
both with Israel on the one hand, and with the United States, it tries to be on the side
of, say, the official position of the international community, and I think they have been working
on trying to get this agreement for two reasons.
One is practical, as you know, Gaza borders on Sinai, which is part of Egypt, and one of
the main exits, one of the main gateways of Gaza to the outside world is Egypt through
Sinai.
The other gateway, of course, is Israel, which has been closed over the past 10 years, and
so Egypt wanted to step in and help the people in Gaza by opening up the border with it between
it and Gaza, but it has problems, and one of the problems is the position of the political
platform of Hamas, but this was solved when it was said, when Hamas said that we are not
part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is what causes problems in Egypt, but another problem
which has not been solved is the security problem on the border with Egypt.
Now why?
Because in Sinai itself, there's been a growing activity by the so-called Islamic State, which
not only is working in Syria and Iraq, but also in Sinai, and, for example, in this particular
context, although Egypt, after the initial agreement was signed recently between Fatah
and Hamas, although Egypt had promised to open the borders between it and Gaza last
Monday, it couldn't, in fact, do this and has not been able to do this.
Why?
Because a group of so-called ISIS or Islamic State attacked town on that border, robbing
attack in killing 10, 11 people, making the Egyptian army go down, make a raid against
these people, and the Egyptian army has been unable, therefore, to secure that border.
So Egypt has a problem in Sinai with these people, and it wants to control them, it wants
to control the Hamas people in Gaza so that they do not form a kind of support system
for the Muslim Brothers in Cairo, and presumably it wants to try and help to bring peace in
the area by taking Hamas under its wing.
And so it's been working very hard, and, you know, I think without Egypt and without the
intervention of Egypt in the past, I don't know how long we would not have reached the
point where we are now.
As to the other countries, the Arab world, of course now the map has changed.
In the past there was a division or a difference with Qatar supporting Hamas, sometimes Iran
supporting Hamas, sometimes Turkey supporting Hamas, but now I think people, other countries
are taking the backstage while Egypt is in the forefront in trying to bring this about.
And if it does come about, I don't think, you know, many Arab countries will be unhappy.
People probably will welcome a reunification of the leadership of the Palestinians, at
least so that maybe that leadership can become engaged once again in a peace negotiation
reserve.
Okay.
Well, as far as I can make out, we have heard two reactions, one from the government, saying
they're not very happy with it, and they will not negotiate with the government on the Palestinian
side that will have a Hamas component in it.
So that position is, we're against this, but today there was an item in the news to the
fact that perhaps the opposition in Israel, the Labour Party, might be open, minded about
this, they would welcome such negotiations.
But you know, in my own estimation, Israel probably is not very happy, wouldn't be very
happy about a reconciliation between the two sides, probably because it feels that such
a reconciliation would not be serious enough, maybe, between the two sides.
And maybe because, you know, it's not really interesting anyway, at the moment, maybe,
in engaging with the Palestinians side.
But it's very hard to tell.
I think, you know, at least officially speaking, the Israelis have not been, you know, very
concerned about this.
I doubt it personally, I doubt it.
In any case, the conditions for a negotiation are very, very, they're not very right.
The Middle East at the moment is in turmoil, and in that context, it's not really clear
to what extent there would be sufficient support in international support for a peace negotiation
between the two sides.
It's quite possible that there have been some initiatives, maybe, you know, on the part
of the Americans, the Europeans, maybe, to the fact that, to try and encourage the Israeli,
the Palestinian Hamas, in fact, to come together so that negotiations could begin.
Maybe there was such an intervention, but it doesn't seem to me anyway, so far, that
anything serious can get off the ground from this.
Only because it's not really clear that Hamas and Fatah will eventually really come to an
agreement.
But secondly, even if they do come to an agreement, because I don't think what's on the table,
so to speak, that is, today on the table for an agreement, it's something that will be
acceptable anyway.
But either side, one side will find what the other side accepts unacceptable from its perspective.
So it doesn't really look very encouraging at the moment.
And I think, unless America happens, and that's all that's possible, I think, you know, we're
just going to see the future repeating itself for some time to come.
