Post-revolution Egypt celebrated yesterday the signing of a Palestinian reconciliation agreement after four years of virulent internal conflict, Amira Howeidy reports Change is sweeping the Arab world and the Palestinians who took to the streets in thousands chanting, "The people want the end of the division!" are no exception. On Tuesday, rival factions Hamas and Fatah signed an agreement in Cairo to end a four- year-old hostile conflict for the sake of national unity. This was followed yesterday noon by a large celebration at the Egyptian Intelligence headquarters attended by a host of Arab and international figures and ministers, including Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of Fatah, Hamas's politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, Egypt's chief of General Intelligence Murad Mowafi, and Foreign Minister Nabil El-Arabi. The Palestinians signed three documents that compliment each other: the 2009 Cairo paper for Palestinian reconciliation, an "understanding" for reconciliation presented in 2010 Damascus, and a third agreement written in Cairo last month. Based on the agreements, an interim government of technocrats will be formed to address a series of key issues, including preparing for presidential and parliamentary elections exactly one year from now, on 4 May 2012. The two elections will be held in parallel with a third, to elect the Palestinian National Council (PNC), which is the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The new government also has to resolve a complicated security situation, the outcome of the growth of separate security apparatuses for Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, and to create one unified security force. The conflict between the two factions surfaced following Hamas's victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections, a defeat Fatah found hard to accept. Tense relations developed into a war between the two factions when Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007 following a power struggle with US- backed Fatah. Since then Palestinians had to deal with two governments: one in Gaza and the other in the West Bank. The interim government will also have to unite Palestinian civic institutions and the administrative system. Under the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt attempted to broker an agreement between the two factions for four years without much success. After a series of meetings with Fatah and Hamas, Cairo proposed a 16-page reconciliation agreement in October 2009, which both parties refused to sign citing wording that gave the upper hand to the rival party in issues of security, elections and restructuring the PLO. The process eventually drew to a halt and was shelved by Cairo last year, until the surprise announcement last week that Fatah and Hamas agreed to end divisions and sign an agreement. The mood in Gaza, Ramallah and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan was jubilant Wednesday morning while the signing ceremony was taking place in Cairo. According to Hamas deputy politburo chief Moussa Abu Marzouk, the initiative came from Egyptian intelligence under its new chief, Mowafi. He attributed the sudden agreement between the two factions to several factors, including the change of the Egyptian regime following the 25 January Revolution and the failure of "peace talks" between Israel and the PA. Last week's agreement was followed by statements from Foreign Minister El-Arabi that Cairo will take new measures to ease the "shameful" Israeli-imposed siege on Gaza. Egypt shares a 14 kilometre-long border with Gaza, and its Rafah Crossing is the only gateway for Palestinians to the outside world that is not controlled by Israel. Under the Mubarak regime, Egypt kept the crossing closed for weeks and sometimes months at a time, allowing only security approved Palestinians to exit and enter Gaza. It also banned the transfer of food and medical supplies via Rafah, transferring them to the Israeli-controlled Ouja Crossing. In effect, it enhanced the siege. With the ouster of Mubarak, Egypt is now ready to adopt a new policy towards the Palestinians. Al-Ahram Weekly has learned from informed sources that because Cairo was determined to open the Rafah Crossing "anyway", it conveyed to PA President Abbas that the Palestinians must sign a reconciliation agreement. The PA president has his own version of how Fatah decided to sign the agreement. In a 90-minute long meeting with Al-Ahram editors Tuesday evening, Abbas said that when Hamas ignored his initiative in March to form a national unity government and go to the UN in September and announce the creation of a Palestinian state, he turned to Cairo. "I told the Egyptians, I don't want a dialogue because we're done with talks," he said, "there's the [2009] reconciliation agreement and it should be signed." Abbas added that he preferred a six-month interim period, but accepted Hamas's wish to extend it to a year. He said he is not planning to run in the 2012 elections. When asked on the "real" reasons why Fatah and Hamas suddenly decided to sign, Abbas replied: "What happened? The people's revolutions, that's what. And I won't say more." One contentious issue between the two factions is the security situation. According to Abu Marzouk, his movement doesn't mind -- for the time being -- the formula put forward by Abbas to uphold the status quo (ie separate security apparatuses in Gaza and the West Bank) until the 2012 elections. "The new government can then decide how to handle this issue," he said. It is unclear, nonetheless, how resistance movements will operate in the West Bank where the PA -- as per the Oslo Accords -- is obliged to disarm the resistance in areas that are not controlled directly by Israel. Although no one will confirm it, speculation is rife on an "unofficial" agreement with resistance movements to maintain an atmosphere of "calm" or tahdea during the one-year interim period. Says Abu Marzouk: "We haven't discussed this at all with the resistance factions." While Hamas looks forward to the opening of the Rafah Crossing, which Abu Marzouk wants to be "more than just a gateway" for the Palestinians, Abbas adopted a more cautious approach. He called for a "return" to the 2005 border agreement between the PA and Israel that installed EU observers on the border together with members of the presidential guard with a camera connected to Israeli border guards a few kilometres away. The US-brokered 2005 deal expired in 2006 and wasn't renewed. When Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, Egypt closed the border. "We want to ease the siege of Gaza, but we must be cautious not to throw responsibility for the Strip onto Egypt," Abbas said, echoing concerns voiced repeatedly by the Mubarak regime. He described Hamas's control of Gaza as a "coup" not "a division". The agreement signed Tuesday is the fourth since reconciliation talks began in Cairo eight years ago. The first was the Cairo Declaration of 2005, which restated the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation and the right of approximately five million Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and property. It was followed by the 2006 National Accord, four months after Hamas won the elections and called for the implementation of the 2005 agreement, the formation of a national unity government, and an end to the Israeli siege that had just begun. In 2007, Saudi Arabia brokered the very short-lived "Mecca Accords". Will this agreement survive the substantial gaps remaining between Fatah and Hamas, along with complicated realities on the ground and Israel's rage at reconciliation? "Any prediction is tantamount to gambling at this point," Palestinian expert Helmi Moussa told the Weekly. After the fall of the Mubarak regime, which supported Fatah against Hamas, and now with the volatile situation in Syria, which hosts the Palestinian resistance factions, both Fatah and Hamas are in a better position to "understand" why they must end the divide, he said.
