By Abel Zaanoun 3:34PM JULY 31, 2023
Rival Palestinian political leaders meeting in Egypt decided on Sunday to form a committee on reconciliation, a move one analyst doubted would end their 17-year rift.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met for rare face-to-face talks in the coastal city of El Alamein along with representatives of most political factions.
The latest attempt at reconciliation aims to bridge the gap between the parallel governments of Hamas in the blockaded Gaza Strip and of the PA – controlled by Mr Abbas’s secularist Fatah movement — which administers Palestinian-run areas of the West Bank.
Mr Abbas and Mr Haniyeh were joined by the heads of other factions, except for Islamic Jihad and two other minor groups. Islamic Jihad had made the release of prisoners held by PA security forces a condition for sending representatives to El Alamein.
Mr Haniyeh earlier on Sunday called on Mr Abbas to end “security collaboration” with Israel and “political arrests”, according to participants at the meeting.
The Hamas leader also said “a new, inclusive parliament must be formed on the basis of free democratic elections”. Hamas, which won the Palestinians’ last legislative polls held in 2006, has repeatedly called for an election.
Mr Abbas, 87, said “the coup d’etat and the division that befell us after … must end”, referring to clashes between Hamas and Fatah after the 2006 vote. “We must return to a single state, a single system, a single law and a single legitimate army.” To work towards this, he announced “the formation of a committee to continue the dialogue … end divisions and achieve Palestinian national unity”. In a later statement he said he “hopes for an upcoming meeting soon in Egypt to announce to our people the end” of the 17-year split “and the return to Palestinian national unity”.
Political scientist Moukhaimer Abu Saada said the formation of the committee was no cause for celebration. “The best way to kill something is to form a committee for it,” he said. He said he doubted the move would produce any progress towards “ending the division or setting a date for Palestinian elections”.
Echoing a sense of despair among Palestinians, one Facebook user wrote that the talks in El Alamein – which in Arabic means “two flags” – showed the impassable distance between Hamas and Fatah who “fly completely different flags”.
On Sunday, Mr Haniyeh called for “the restructuring of the Palestine Liberation Organisation”, the umbrella institution promoting Palestinian statehood. The PLO includes most factions, but not Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
The PLO is “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”, Mr Abbas said. He called for “peaceful popular resistance”, while Mr Haniyeh touted “comprehensive resistance”.
Khaled al-Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader, said the group had “hoped for a response from Mahmoud Abbas to grievances and calls for the release” of its members detained in the West Bank. “We have been surprised by an unprecedented security incursion against resistance fighters,” he said.
Sunday’s meeting came amid a resurgence of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in the West Bank, which has resulted in the deaths of least 203 Palestinians, 27 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian. The spike has coincided with the tenure of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right administration, which took office late last year and includes members with a history of anti-Palestinian rhetoric.