Egypt's patience is wearing thin with Hamas -- and also Fatah, Dina Ezzat reports In Cairo Tuesday morning, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not look comfortable when telling journalists at the Heliopolis headquarters of President Hosni Mubarak that he is getting closer to calling, by 25 October, presidential and legislative elections, with or without a deal for inter-Palestinian reconciliation. The Palestinian president spoke following a meeting with President Mubarak. Abbas, Palestinian sources in the Fatah camp and Hamas adversaries say, is not blind to the fact that this early call for elections is essentially a threat aimed to force Hamas to the reconciliation table. "Abbas knows full well that if he calls for elections before reconciliation is concluded, it is in the West Bank [the seat of the Fatah controlled Palestinian Authority] that these elections would be conducted," said a Hamas source on condition of anonymity. According to the same source, Hamas will only allow elections in Gaza when a reconciliation deal is concluded that ends the current split between Gaza and the West Bank in effect since summer 2007 when Hamas took over Gaza. According to Hamas, this takeover was prompted by an immanent Fatah coup attempt to dislodge Hamas rule in Gaza after the latter won democratic elections held in January 2006. Hamas also claims that Fatah used the security apparatus of the Palestinian Authority against its activists in a bid to "stifle resistance against Israel". For its part, Egypt has been trying for two years to broker a reconciliation deal between the two conflicting Palestinian factions. The Palestinian reconciliation scheme as pursued by Cairo also included 11 other Palestinian factions in a bid to reach a comprehensive national consensus under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority. On 25 October, Egypt had planned an international signing ceremony for a final agreement to be accepted by all consensually. The furore over the decision of Abbas to delay consideration by the UN Human Rights Council of a report on Israeli war crimes and human rights violations scuppered the Egyptian plan. The subsequent adoption by the Human Rights Council of the recommendations of the report failed to bring the parties back to the reconciliation table. Now Palestinian factions, especially Hamas, are contesting anew the proposed deal. As one of its Damascus based sources suggested to Al-Ahram Weekly, Hamas "is finding some linguistic changes" in the text that it had previously agreed to -- particularly formulations that eschew militant resistance against Israel. Egyptian officials in charge of the reconciliation file deny "categorically" that Cairo unilaterally changed the agreed upon document. Meanwhile, Egypt's official press carried a sequence of statements attributed to Egyptian officials who squarely blamed Hamas for "playing games". The reassuring statements made by Hamas leaders about their commitment to the "cause of reconciliation" did not abate criticism of Hamas in official quarters. Egyptian patience with Hamas is wearing very thin, sources say. But Cairo is also sensitive about exaggerated moves on the side of Abbas, including the threat of calling for elections in the West Bank only. This, officials say repeatedly, would only "entrench" the division between Gaza and the West Bank and as such leave the former for Egypt to worry about on its eastern borders. On Tuesday, Abbas announced that Cairo supports his calling for elections on 25 October. "Egypt does not oppose these elections, or a presidential decree that would announce the call for elections in line with Palestinian [basic law]," Abbas said, following talks with Mubarak. "Yes. Egypt's position is not opposed to the call for elections, but we do oppose elections in the West Bank only," said an Egyptian diplomat on condition of anonymity. He added that Cairo would not support Abbas if he walked a unilateral path, "and he has been told this explicitly". According to Palestinian basic law, the mandate of the current presidency and parliament expires on 25 October. Egypt had hoped that the signing of a reconciliation deal would precede that date. In one semi-final draft of the reconciliation agreement, obtained by the Weekly, it is agreed that while the call for elections would take place on 25 October, the actual elections would be held, with international and Arab monitoring, in late June 2010. Today Abbas is making his call for elections, but not saying when they would take place. Despite its frustration with Hamas, Cairo is not going to go along with what it might consider ill-calculated moves by Abbas. "He wants to exclude Hamas. This is his business, but we cannot get stuck with Gaza and this is something we have been telling him repeatedly, as we have told the Americans and everybody else. But I am not sure that he is listening very carefully," the same diplomat stressed. The densely populated and impoverished Gaza Strip is for Egypt a time bomb. It has become a hub of radical Islamic thought. Its population is suffocated by an Israeli siege and is subject to Israeli raids and possible new wars. Indeed, Egypt has much to worry about.
