Russia's attempts to overcome the stand-off between Palestine's political factions conflict with US-Israeli pressures, reports Saleh Al-Naami "Perhaps we can choose a formulation that is more moderate and less provocative to people here," said Ghazi Hamed, spokesperson for the dismissed government of Ismail Haniyeh, about the recommendation he received by phone from a prominent leader of the Fatah movement in the West Bank. The recommendation concerned an exit from the domestic political crisis that has beset the Palestinian people since the Hamas movement took control of the Gaza Strip and the subsequent measures announced by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). On the other end of the phone line was Major-General Jibril Al-Rajoub, former national security adviser and member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council. He is one of the few Fatah leaders who are openly calling for dialogue with Hamas and demanding that Abu Mazen show flexibility in his position. Hamed and Al-Rajoub secretly exchange numerous ideas on how to exit the current crisis daily. Although the leaders of Fatah and Hamas do not hasten to accept these ideas, each of them continues to check the pulse of their leadership and attempts to push it towards agreement and flexibility. In his first floor office of Haniyeh's cabinet, Hamed maintains communications with Palestinian and Arab parties, urging them to mediate to push both sides towards dialogue. "I am aware that not everything I do is accepted to the leadership of Hamas, but I am determined to undertake any effort that can contribute to solving the crisis," Hamed told Al-Ahram Weekly. The mission of Al-Rajoub seems more complicated, for Abu Mazen continues to impose rigid conditions for even agreeing to begin dialogue with Hamas. These conditions include Hamas retreating from the "overthrow" and all of its manifestations, returning headquarters and institutions, and apologising for the military settlement of issues. Yet Abu Mazen is not content with these conditions; he has also taken decisions that make future dialogue more difficult, issuing edicts denying legitimacy to the institutions of Hamas. He has also issued instructions to pursue members of the movement in the West Bank and arrest them. Ismail Haniyeh has proposed a five-point initiative for solving the crisis that includes beginning a condition-free dialogue; restructuring the Palestinian security agencies so that they are "national, professional, and removed from factional contention"; respecting the agreements signed between Fatah and Hamas, especially the Mecca and Cairo agreements; determining the basis for political partnership; and guaranteeing "protection of the democratic choice and a peaceful rotation of power". Nabil Amr, Abbas's political advisor, strongly rejects Haniyeh's initiative, and stresses that Abu Mazen is committed to the conditions he has laid down for dialogue with Hamas. He notes that these conditions have been adopted by Fatah and the Palestinian Central Council. In a conversation with the Weekly, Amr stressed that secret communications between leaders of Fatah (including Al-Rajoub) and Hamas do not reflect the position of Abu Mazen and the leadership of Fatah. Amr also said that Abu Mazen rejects the intervention of mediators attempting to convince him to agree to dialogue with Hamas before it agrees to the conditions he has imposed. On his part, Bassem Naim, who holds four ministerial files in Haniyeh's dismissed government and is one of the most prominent Hamas leaders, holds that Abu Mazen's "extremist" position regarding dialogue stems not only from his personal conviction but also from the immense pressures placed on him by Israel and the United States. Naim holds that the meetings held between Abu Mazen and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and an upcoming international meeting to be held in Washington at the invitation of President Bush to bring together representatives from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Arab states, are forms of pressure placed upon Abu Mazen to urge him not to dialogue with Hamas. Yet despite this, Naim notes that Hamas has begun to pressure Abu Mazen through communications with influential members in Fatah who believe that a large part of what took place in Gaza is the responsibility of Fatah itself. Naim adds that a number of secret meetings have taken place between representatives of Hamas and leaders in Fatah in several West Bank cities, and notes that these leaders have proposed ideas, for resolving the crisis, that are a "mid-way solution between the position of Abu Mazen and the positions of the Hamas movement." One of the suggestions proposed by the leaders to Hamas has been to form a government whose sole mission is to prepare for legislative and presidential elections within a year, assume control of the Palestinian Authority institutions and security agency headquarters that Hamas took control of, and supervise the process of restructuring the security agencies so that no one faction dominates them. It is very clear that Hamas is trying to benefit from the increased polarisation within the leadership structures of the Fatah movement following its success in controlling the Gaza Strip. A number of the movement's leaders have begun to go public with their views, stating that what took place does not justify refusing to dialogue with Hamas and calling for holding accountable the "corrupt current that has led the Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip." One of these leaders is Ahmed Halas, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and one of its most prominent leaders in Gaza, who says that there is no alternative to dialogue with Hamas. Halas is considered the most prominent foe of Mohamed Dahlan, Abu Mazen's adviser on national security affairs who in practice led the Fatah movement in Gaza until it fell into the hands of Hamas. He told the Weekly that a third Palestinian party must seriously intervene to mediate between the two sides and prescribe a solution, and stressed that no hope should be placed on the possibility of an Arab or international party intervening to resolve the dispute between Fatah and Hamas. Yet even as Halas criticised Hamas, he launched a harsh attack on the leaders of Fatah who have "insulted the movement, its history, and the Palestinian national cause," as he put it. Halas holds that these leaders must "disappear forever from the arena of political activity". Yet the bets of the Hamas movement that Halas and the other Fatah leaders in opposition to Dahlan will succeed in changing Abu Mazen's position, do not look like they'll pay off, as Nihad Al-Sheikh Khalil, a Palestinian writer, says. "Abu Mazen realises that he will lose if he agrees to dialogue with Hamas. Due to his insistence on boycotting the Hamas movement, he has gained political, economic, and military support from the United States and international and regional parties," he told the Weekly. Al-Sheikh Khalil also noted that Abu Mazen realised that should he agree to dialogue without conditions, this would take place according to rules entirely different from those that governed previous dialogues between the two parties, due to the change in the balance of power following Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip. In contrast, Al-Sheikh Khalil notes that Hamas is the one interested in dialogue "because it is tightly squeezed due to the siege," while acknowledging that each of the two parties continues to impose facts on the ground so as to push the other party to concessions that will strengthen its position when the time comes for negotiations. It is also very clear that the dialogue between Hamas and Fatah is not affected by the will of the two movements' leaders. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said on more than one occasion that he recently agreed to grant a number of "indicators of good will, including the release of 250 prisoners and arming of Abu Mazen's forces in the West Bank, so as to prevent his holding dialogue with the Hamas movement". During a government meeting held last Sunday, Olmert told his cabinet, "we have stressed to the president of the [Palestinian] Authority that if he returns to dialogue with Hamas, he will not be our partner in any political endeavour." In contrast to the Israeli-American pressure on Abu Mazen to prevent him from dialoguing with Hamas, the Russian government has been exerting mounting efforts to convince Abu Mazen to agree to dialogue according to the initiative developed in Moscow through consultation with Arab parties. A prominent source from the Hamas movement told the Weekly that the Russian initiative consists of two basic principles. The first is a return to the conditions that prevailed prior to Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip, including the re-formation of a national unity government. The second is the restructuring of the Palestinian security agencies on a professional, national and nonpartisan basis. This source noted that the Russians contacted Khaled Meshaal, head of the Hamas movement's politburo, and informed him of the initiative's content, which, according to this source, "can form an entry point for dialogue." At the same time, the Russians presented the initiative to Abu Mazen during his last visit to Moscow. This same source adds that despite Abu Mazen's rejection of the initiative, Moscow informed Hamas that there is a basis for assuming that Abu Mazen will soon show flexibility towards it. Yet until Abu Mazen accepts dialogue with Hamas, the continued boycott will drive some of the movement's currents to avoid any bets on dialogue and deal with the current status as though it will be sustained. This would, in their view, necessitate calling for the movement's continued efforts to maintain control over Palestinian Authority institutions in Gaza, and to produce a "new model" for rule in Gaza. Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, former minister of foreign affairs and one of the most prominent of the movement's leaders, is enthusiastic about this idea. Yet, in contrast, some of the elite connected to Hamas warn of the danger of falling for the idea that Hamas can remain the sole power in the Gaza Strip in the long term. They argue that it is impossible for the movement to succeed in running the Gaza Strip's affairs in light of the suffocating siege it is under, in addition to the specific problems of the Gaza Strip, including escalating poverty and unemployment. One of the young leaders in Hamas describes Al-Zahhar's ideas as reflecting a "scandalous lack of political awareness. Corruption destroyed the Fatah movement, and I fear that the weak political awareness of some of our leaders will destroy us," he told the Weekly.
