It's still the same old story, the plot depressingly familiar. Abdel-Moneim Said* dissects Palestinian factional talks The need for inter-Palestinian dialogue has loomed over Arab politics since 1948, or even before. Some of you may recall how in the 1960s everyone wanted the Ahmed Shoqeiri-led PLO to sort things out with the Yasser Arafat-led Fatah, the latter being back then a bit of an enigma. Was it an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, some wondered, or a pawn of Israel? Having taken control of the PLO after the 1967 war, Fatah found itself having to talk to the George Habash-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Then the PFLP had to talk to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), Fatah had to talk to the Revolutionary Council, and all the above had to contend with the General Command or whatever splinter group was up and coming. You cannot be smart enough to know what's going on in the dark recesses of Palestinian politics. You cannot be up-to-date enough to know who is incensed by who, what and why. At any point some Palestinian official will be haranguing another about something, while the nation suffers. What we have now in Cairo is the latest version of inter-Palestinian dialogue. Fatah and Hamas are the main stars with supporting roles going to a dozen or so other Palestinian factions from Gaza or Ramallah. The tragedy of the day is Gaza, just as it was the Lebanon war a few years ago, the Jordanian massacre a few decades ago. The rituals of dialogue begin with a unanimous call for a halt to "media campaigns". The term is borrowed from non-Palestinian Arab politics. It is common in this region for two countries to unleash their media against each other in a relentless war of words that lasts as long as their governments wish. Then when something happens of importance, or a friendly foreign power intervenes, the two countries bury the hatchet and the media is once again silent. One wonders sometimes what happens to all the acrimonious allegations that are made. Are they true or false? It is often impossible to say. The Palestinians lashed out at each other with zeal. Hamas people called Abbas an illegitimate president and the PA the Dayton Authority, Dayton being the US officer who is training the presidential guard. Ramallah, said Gaza, had committed high treason. But talks had to start and the media campaigns were called off. Now we're not sure exactly what is to be made of the charges of treason. Were they true or libelous? No one seems to care much now that what matters are the formalities of talks which perhaps offer a chance to show that your own command of historic facts is more keen than your opponents'. Another ritual of talks is that the sponsor, or mediator, is always wrong. In this case, Egypt gets all the blame. Interestingly, before the talks started, some Hamas officials insinuated that they had received "offers" for mediation from other quarters. Offers? Like the offers one gets from a real estate agent? Not only that, as soon as the talks got underway some people asked for Arab sponsorship. Egyptian sponsorship was apparently inadequate. A good dialogue can always use another coat of sponsorship for extra assurance, it seems. The implicit message here is that Egypt should arrange for the talks but keep its hands off. Anything it says or does may be held against it, the accusers screaming their views on television at least as far as Al-Jazeera can broadcast. Instead of organising the dialogue Egypt is being told what to do. Then you get to the nuts and bolts. The actual dialogue begins and, as usual, every problem is suffused with a dozen of conflicting issues each of which must be given full and equal attention. A half dozen or so committee spawn overnight, each containing representatives of 13 factions. These, in turn, spawn sub-committees, to look into the issues that pertain to the main topic, which will finally be the prerogative of one general committee the work of which will have to be integrated with the endless discussions of the other committees and sub-committees. The result is three types of dialogue: general, basic, and primary, all held against a background of accusations being on television. In the old days the real cheerleaders of the screaming used Beirut-based papers, to which DFLP leader Nayef Hawatmeh was happy to contribute volumes at a moment's notice. Can anything good come out of all this? You may not think so but actually there is some hope this time, if only because Syria has an interest in seeing things move ahead. Also, Netanyahu's nomination as Israel's prime minister helps a bit. It leaves the Palestinians with nothing to fight over anymore. The dialogue can come up with results though this is hardly reassuring, and soon enough another dialogue will have to be arranged by the hapless mediators, in the wake of another tragedy. The day when we no longer need this kind of dialogue will be the day Palestinian history has finally moved on. * The writer is director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
