What does it take to unite against the invasion, asks Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah Like all Palestinians and Arabs, the Palestinian Authority (PA) reacted angrily to the sustained Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. PA President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian officials used terms such as "carnage" and "criminal aggression" to describe the unprecedented Israeli attacks on Gaza, saying that this was the time for Palestinians to unite in the face of the Israeli onslaught. Other Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) officials said that the Israeli onslaught in Gaza was not only against Hamas but against the Palestinian people as a whole. However, some PA officials, like Tayyeb Abdel-Rahim and Nimr Hammad, a senior advisor to Abbas, voiced a degree of gloating over the bombing, with the former expressing the hope that the forces of Fatah would soon re-conquer Gaza and the later blaming Hamas for "this tragedy." However, as the enormity of the sustained Israeli bombing became clear and the death toll grew rather dramatically, statements critical of Hamas receded and nearly disappeared as it became clear that such remarks would seriously harm the image of Fatah. Hamas described Abdel-Rahim's remarks as "conspicuously treasonous". "Those who hope to return to Gaza aboard Israeli tanks are traitors," said Hamas's representative in Beirut, Osama Hamdan. Earlier, Abbas blamed Hamas for not heeding his advice to renew the erstwhile tacit ceasefire understanding. In a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit in Cairo on 28 August, Abbas said he had made direct and indirect contacts with Hamas's leaders prior to the start of the bombing campaign, advising them to renew the truce, but to no avail. Abbas said he was making intensive contacts with the "influential capitals of the world" for the purpose of getting them to pressure Israel to stop its aggression. On Monday, 29 December, Abbas called for an urgent meeting of all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, in his office in Ramallah to discuss ways and means to put an end to the "difficult situation facing our brothers in Gaza." The meeting did take place and it was decided to send a shipment of badly-needed medicine to the Gaza Strip via the UN apparatus operating in the occupied territories. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad boycotted the meeting, accusing Abbas of "lacking in seriousness". One Hamas leader from the Gaza Strip, Fawzi Barhoum, charged that Abbas was taking superficial steps which amount to calling on Hamas to surrender to Israel. Some Hamas leaders in the West Bank urged Abbas to prove his sincerity about national unity by releasing all political prisoners in PA jails. The call for desensitising the Fatah-Hamas showdown by releasing political prisoners in both Gaza and the West Bank was also echoed by leaders of other Palestinian factions and also by journalists. Nonetheless, Abbas and the senior PA leadership continued to insist that Hamas's prisoners were being incarcerated for "criminal" rather than political reasons. Hamas calls the PA rationale for detaining hundreds of its supporters "scandalously mendacious". Earlier this month, Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Gaza-based Hamas government challenged Abbas to release political prisoners. "If you release these prisoners today, you will see us in Cairo tomorrow," he said, referring to the Egyptian- mediate national unity talks. Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is imprisoned in Israel for leading the Al-Aqsa Intifada, has also called for a meeting of all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, in two weeks in order to resolve the Fatah-Hamas rift. According to Qaddura Fares who frequently visits Barghouti in his jail cell, the popular Fatah leader warned that it would be really catastrophic for the Palestinians and their just cause to fail to rebuild national unity in light of "the war of extermination" on Palestinians Israel has been carrying out. "If we don't succeed to restore national unity now, when will we succeed," Barghouti reportedly asked. To be sure, Barghouti's feelings are shared by most Palestinians, including Hamas leaders. However, it is uncertain whether the Palestinian government, which is responsible to Abbas, would allow such a meeting to take place. Sceptics argue that there are certain elements associated with the "American-Israeli trend" within Fatah who are not interested in "rehabilitating Hamas" and "enabling it to become once again a legitimate part of the Palestinian political system. Facing boiling indignation at Israeli crimes in Gaza, Palestinian negotiator and Fatah leader Ahmed Qurei said he was suspending all talks with Israel. "There are no talks any way, and we can't really hold talks while they are committing this war of extermination against our civilians in Gaza," said Qurei. Meanwhile, widespread protests against the bombings campaign in Gaza took place all over the West Bank. The strongest took place north of Ramallah where Palestinian youngsters hurled stones on Israeli occupation soldiers. The soldiers responded with live bullets, killing at least two demonstrators and wounding many, some seriously. In downtown Hebron, thousands of pro- Hamas demonstrators took to the streets on Sunday shouting anti-Israeli slogans and denouncing "the cowardice of Arab regimes" and their "connivance and collusion with Israel" against Hamas. However, as soon as the demonstration started, hundreds of PA policemen violently dispersed it, roughing up protesters and firing into the air. In Ramallah, a larger demonstration took place. However, Hamas's supporters were not allowed to hold aloft the group's green banners. Earlier, the Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal urged Palestinians to start a new Intifada against Israel. However, it is too early to say if Mashaal's call will be heeded. Nonetheless, some observers here believe that a third Intifada would be inevitable if the Israeli bombing continued many more days.
