Efforts to end divisions between the Palestinian factions may inevitably mean the cancellation of the Oslo Accords, says Saleh Al-Naami Majed Ibrahim, 44, a university professor at the Islamic University in Gaza, avoids driving across the Al-Galaa crossroads which connects Omar Al-Mukhtar and Al-Wehda Streets -- the two largest in Gaza City. The police have been stopping traffic there to make way for marches demanding an end to divisions between the Palestinian factions, such demonstrations using the crossroads at regular intervals and organised by political parties and movements and civic, human-rights, women's and youth organisations. This week, for the first time since the demonstrations began, a political framework for reconciliation has been formed that includes members of Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas. The new Palestinian Conciliation Committee includes such prominent figures as Ahmed Youssef, a senior Foreign Ministry official in the cabinet of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneyah, Ghazi Hamad, director of border crossings, Osama Al-Fara, a member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, and Kamal Al-Sharafi, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on human-rights issues. While this committee has been formed with the goal of ending divisions between the two factions, there are still disagreements on how to achieve this. Some believe disagreements should be resolved separately from the political agreements between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel, while others have been calling for the cancellation of the Oslo Accords, saying that these have been at the root of the divisions. Nader Al-Moqadema, spokesman for the Youth Campaign to End Division, believes the focus should be on reconciliation through compromise by both sides. All political detainees and Palestinian prisoners should be released, Al-Moqadema said, and the governments in Gaza and the West Bank should commit themselves to not violating individual and public freedoms and to guaranteeing political discourse in a free and democratic setting. In a statement read out during a march sponsored by the group on Saturday, Al-Moqadema called on Hamas and Fatah to stop their divisive media campaigns and instead to demonstrate the true meanings of unity and reconciliation. He also asserted the right of the Palestinian people to resist until the occupation was defeated. Al-Moqadema said that a comprehensive national dialogue should be begun among all Palestinians and a timeline set out to cement ties among the Palestinian people, reasserting the prominence of the Palestinian national cause. Efforts should be exerted to reconcile Hamas and Fatah, he said, as well as "all other social and political sectors." At the same time, Al-Moqadema called for the formation of a temporary national coalition government to prepare for parliamentary elections, as well as for the "restructuring of the Palestine Liberation Organisation [PLO] in order for it to incorporate all Palestinians and remain the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." Most campaigns for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas require that the Oslo Accords be repealed, since these have been responsible for fractures in Palestinian ranks. Such demands are now gaining strength, especially since the authorities on the West Bank recently received an unexpected blow, embarrassing them in the eyes of the public, when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a member of the PLO, accused security forces loyal to Abbas of arresting several of its members in Nablus at the behest of occupation forces. The PFLP issued a statement saying that the arrests were part of security cooperation between the occupation army and the PA's security forces. The group demanded "the immediate halting of these arrests, the ending of security cooperation and the immediate release of detainees," noting that "there are several detainees from the PFLP who are in PA jails across the West Bank." "At a time when the Zionist occupation continues its aggressive actions against our people, putting under siege, annexing and Judaising Jerusalem, and at a time when we have been calling for an end to the rifts and an enhancement of national unity on the basis of a struggle to revive the Palestinian cause, the PA has arrested a number of our members in Nablus under false pretenses and as part of hateful security cooperation with the occupation," the PFLP statement read. Those calling for the scrapping of the Oslo Accords say that the rifts between the Palestinian factions have squandered national gains and that the Accords have sold the Palestinians an illusion. Even those who signed the Accords now admit that they have not led to progress, with Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in Jerusalem notably increasing by 85 per cent since Oslo. The Oslo Accords committed Palestinians signing them to protect the security of Israel's borders, undermining the resistance of the Palestinian people, such critics say, pointing to the fate of late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, who obliged the PA to act against the Palestinian resistance and arrest its leaders and provoking the eruption of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in October 2000. Israel then demonised Arafat, stripping him of his legitimacy and putting him under siege. Critics of the Oslo Accords point out that during the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, both Israel and the US thought that the outcome would reinforce the status quo on the West Bank and in Gaza. When this was not the case, Washington, Tel Aviv and certain Arab regimes, in cooperation with Abbas, decided to overturn the results and challenge Haneyah's government. Ending Palestinian divisions, critics say, would require repealing the Oslo Accords and agreeing on a joint national platform that maintains minimal consensus among all the Palestinian factions, presenting this as the official Palestinian position. Such critics want to see a united position on resistance against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a united leadership based on democratic representation that does not leave out any elements of Palestinian society. There should be an end to security cooperation between the PA and the occupation authorities and an end to assistance to the Israeli army. The critics demand an end to arrests for political or ideological reasons and discussion on whether the PA is the appropriate political institution to represent Palestinians on the West Bank, or whether it should be rebuilt in the form of a revived PLO on new nationalist and representative lines. Such critics point to the new atmosphere created by the revolutions sweeping the wider Arab world, saying that such democratic changes could help to reassert the Palestinian cause as a priority issue for all Arabs. Meanwhile, Haneyah has reshuffled his cabinet, changing 15 ministers and adding one woman minister in the person of Jamila Al-Shanti as minister of women's affairs. Speaking after the new cabinet was approved by parliament, Haneyah attempted to calm fears that the cabinet reshuffle would frustrate moves towards reconciliation. "The reshuffle is an administrative step and does not oppose reconciliation but moves towards it," Haneyah said. "We all intend to resign once agreement is reached on a national coalition government and divisions are resolved." The political agenda of the new government was "national unity, retaining Jerusalem, the rights of the refugees and the issue of land," he said. Azzam Al-Ahmed, a member of Fatah's central committee, called on Hamas "to agree to form a technocratic and not political government to oversee parliamentary and presidential elections and rebuild the Gaza Strip as a way out of the current crisis." Al-Ahmed said that Fatah would be willing to accept the outcome of any parliamentary or presidential elections held under Arab, Islamic and international supervision, adding that elections were a way out of division. Dialogue should discuss mechanisms paving the way for elections to take place, Al-Ahmed said, and this should be based on "Egyptian proposals, which include the understandings reached by the Palestinian factions that Egypt sponsored." If Hamas found it difficult to start a dialogue with Fatah with a view to ending divisions, "it should form an agreed- on technocratic government to oversee steps in preparation for parliamentary and presidential elections and the rebuilding of Gaza," he said. Meanwhile, it is evident that the margin of manoeuvre available to Abbas and his team is now limited, curtailed not only by the overthrow of president Mubarak, his major regional supporter, but also and more importantly because Israel is refusing to take steps to allow Abbas to save face.
