The prospects for a national unity government are fading fast, reports Khaled Amayreh from the West Bank The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas-led government continued to trade accusations, blaming each other for impeding the formation of a national unity government against the backdrop of the draconian international siege of the Palestinian economy, led by the US and enforced by Israel. Many Palestinians had hoped that a new government would result in the lifting of the sanctions -- imposed by Israel, the US and EU following Hamas's electoral victory earlier this year -- which have crippled public services and threaten an estimated 65-70 per cent of Palestinian families with basic food shortages. But prospects that a new government might be formed are now receding in the face of unresolved contentions over recognising Israel. During PA President Mahmoud Abbas's recent visit to the US, where he met President Bush who described him as "a man of peace", he promised his interlocutors that any future government of national unity would recognise Israel, end "violence" and uphold all outstanding agreements between the PA and Israel, thus meeting the conditions set by the Quartet (US, Russia, EU, and UN) for an end to the boycott. Abbas's remarks about the political orientation of the planned national unity government, in which Hamas would be an equal, if not the senior partner, upset the Gaza-based government, prompting Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to refuse to be a party to any government that recognised Israel. Haniyeh reminded Abbas that the issue was not part of any agreements and understandings reached earlier this month between Fatah and Hamas, pointing out that it was the Prisoners' Document that was the ultimate reference for efforts to form a national unity government. Hamas, essentially a religious organisation, has never agreed to explicitly and formally recognise Israel though Hamas leaders have indicated on numerous occasions their willingness to accept outstanding agreements that themselves implicitly recognise Israel, a strategy that aims to allow the movement to claim it has resisted US and Israeli pressure, unlike its rival Fatah. Haniyeh's intransigent remarks were made while Abbas was meeting Quartet officials in New York. They told the Palestinian president they would be willing to deal with a national unity government, even with Hamas, leaving Abbas in an embarrassing position given what Haniyeh was saying at home. Abbas subsequently declared that efforts to form a government with Hamas were facing a dead end. Abbas was further upset by remarks made by Atef Odwan, the Palestinian minister for refugees, who blamed the president for failing to pay the salaries of impoverished employees before the holy month of Ramadan began on 24 September. Odwan claimed the PA was withholding "hundreds of million dollars" of Arab aid money, insinuating that Abbas and other Fatah leaders were not distributing funds in an attempt to blackmail the government. Fatah rejected the accusations, describing them as "poisonous disinformation". Hamas, meanwhile, denies that talks with Fatah are facing a "dead end". Government spokesman Ghazi Hamad told Al-Ahram Weekly, "the government remained committed to the formation of a national unity government as soon as possible". "I think if all sides show good will, outstanding problems can be resolved within a week." That seems an optimistic timeframe to form a government that is effectively expected to reconcile the irreconcilable, meeting Western demands on the one hand but without alienating Hamas's grassroots base which rejects giving Israel recognition with virtually nothing in return. A majority of Palestinians remains opposed to Hamas recognising Israel, for both religious and ideological reasons, but also because Israel has not indicated any willingness to recognise a viable Palestinian state on all the Palestinian land it occupied in 1967. Israel has also consistently rejected the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes in what is now Israel. Repatriation and indemnification for refugees is a key clause in the Prisoner Document on which any national unity government will be based. Another factor militating against recognition of Israel by Hamas is the widespread suspicion that Israel is only using the issue as propaganda tool, something Israel's treatment of the PA during the Oslo years (1994-2000) confirms. Despite the fact that the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat formally recognised Israel and agreed to annul the Palestinian National Charter, which called for Israel's destruction, successive Israeli governments continued to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank, effectively killing any prospect for the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous state. Hamas believes Israel and the US are attempting to undermine the movement's credibility with its supporters by forcing it to walk in the footsteps of Fatah and adopt the very Oslo path that led to more Jewish settlements and now the gigantic apartheid wall which has turned Palestinian population centres in the West Bank into detention camps. Yet Hamas must deal with the pressing problems facing Palestinian society, the suffocating economic crisis, deepening poverty, and even the threat of starvation that has resulted from the Israeli-American financial blockade. The government has been unable to pay the salaries of more than 160,000 civil servants and public employees, including school teachers, who are now on strike for the fourth consecutive week. There is, yet still, another, even more disastrous prospect: Abbas, under intense pressure from certain pro-American Fatah quarters, might resort to dissolving the Hamas-dominated Legislative Council and form a national emergency government. And that, most people agree, would lead to the prospect of bloodshed between Fatah and Hamas. The only winner in such a conflict would be Israel. (see p.5)
