Relief and celebration swept the Palestinian street on news that the division between Hamas and Fatah has finally been brought to an end, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah Palestinians at all levels reacted euphorically to the signing in Cairo this week of a reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas. The erstwhile rift between the two largest political groups in the Palestinian political arena caused much stress within the Palestinian community, testing the traditionally strong social fabric of Palestinian society. Hence, the conclusion and signing of the reconciliation agreement, which took most Palestinians by surprise, became a festive occasion for ordinary Palestinians as well as political factions. In towns, villages and refugee camps across the West Bank, motorists honked their car horns and women ululated in joy, celebrating the reconciliation agreement. "This is one of the happiest days of my life! I thought this day would never come, but thank God, the Palestinian people are proving to the whole world they deserve to be free," said Halima Said, a middle- aged housewife and mother of seven children from the Fawwar Refugee Camp near Hebron in the southern West Bank. "I don't know and I don't care about the details of the agreement. The important thing for me is that we ought to be united in the face of our enemies who want to obliterate our very existence and keep us divided and weak," she told Al-Ahram Weekly. Meanwhile, an atmosphere of reconciliation was noticeable in many localities in the occupied West Bank as Fatah and Hamas held meetings to coordinate joint activities, such as commemorating the upcoming annual anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba or catastrophe of 1948. A high-ranking Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip, Zakaria Al-Agha, said he hoped a new era of cooperation would dawn, which he said would put the Palestinian people on the track to liberation and statehood. Al-Agha, who is also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Executive Committee, said activists from both Fatah and Hamas were working on collecting signatures to reassert the right of return for refugees as one of the central national constants. Nearly 70 per cent of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are refugees. The Israeli government tried to spoil the moment for Palestinians first by threatening draconian reprisals, including withholding tax funds and customs revenues from the PA, and denying its officials freedom of movement, including travel abroad. Israel did prevent at least one factional leader, Abdel-Rahim Mallouh, acting chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), from leaving the West Bank for Cairo via the Allenby Bridge, to attend the signing ceremony. The group's chief and secretary-general, Ahmed Saadat, remains in an Israeli prison for resisting the Israeli occupation. The rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas is expected to be consolidated in the coming days and weeks with a number of practical steps, including releasing political detainees from both sides. Political detention of Hamas supporters by Fatah authorities in the West Bank, and to lesser extent Fatah supporters by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was consistently an open wound impeding reconciliation efforts and generating mutual recrimination and mistrust. Although the reconciliation agreement in Cairo concerns Fatah and Hamas, it has received near universal backing across the Palestinian factional and partisan spectrum. Leftist factions lauded the agreement, calling on both Hamas and Fatah to pay greater attention to the national interests of the Palestinian people, not just to their respective factional interests. "Palestine is bigger than both Hamas and Fatah; it is bigger than all the factions. Hence efforts ought to be concentrated on rebuilding a broad national front towards the attainment of freedom and independence from this hideous Israeli occupation," said a spokesman of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. "Let us rally around this agreement so that the Palestinian people will be able to create a strong, impenetrable front in the face of Israeli pressures," said Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative. "The enemies of Palestinian national unity are indulging in day dreaming and wishful thinking if they think we will budge under their bullying and blackmailing tactics." Similar statements were issued by the Palestine People's Party (PPP -- formerly the Communist Party), which urged both Fatah and Hamas to work for the collective good of the entire Palestinian people and its cause. While hailing the agreement in principle, the Islamic Jihad said in a statement that it would study the reconciliation agreement more profoundly to see the extent to which it is committed to national constants and the right of the resistance to combat the Israeli occupiers. The only Palestinian political group that expressed reservations about the Cairo agreement was the Islamic Liberation Party, which called on Hamas to see to it that the agreement does not undermine any of the main constants related to Palestinian rights. This fundamentalist party doesn't recognise the Palestinian Authority, viewing it as an artificial creation that serves the interest of Israel and Western powers, not those of the Palestinian people or the Muslim umma or community. The party also rejects the existence of Israel on the grounds that it is based on land theft and ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, Hamas sought to dispel worries and doubts among some Palestinians with regard to the durability of the agreement. Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas-run government in Gaza, told journalists 3 May, that "This agreement will be unlike the Mecca agreement," because it "discusses issues related to security." Haniyeh added that he expects the Higher Leadership Committee, consisting of the secretary-generals of the main factions, to convene for the first time on the second day of the reconciliation signing, when discussions about the national consensus government are also due to begin. Haniyeh pointed out that Israeli attempts to financially blackmail the Palestinian Authority must be countered by Arab funding. "Our Arab brothers must not leave us at Israeli mercies."
