For Cairo, Palestinian reconciliation is taking priority over Palestinian-Israeli negotiations -- at least for now, Dina Ezzat reports On 9 November Egypt will play host to the first round of a Palestinian reconciliation dialogue attended by 13 Palestinian factions. "Despite the many difficulties, Egypt is determined to continue with its efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation and accord. We hope that the meeting will make tangible progress," President Hosni Mubarak said Sunday while announcing the news of the gathering during a joint press conference in Cairo with visiting Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. Aware of the many complications involved Mubarak cautioned: "Palestinian reconciliation will not be achieved at one go." On Sunday and Monday leaders of Hamas and Fatah -- whose political and military battles on the occupied Palestinian territories constitute the core of the inter-Palestinian struggle -- expressed masked scepticism over the chances of the upcoming dialogue achieving profound or long-term reconciliation. "No guarantees" was the phrase used in Gaza by Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar as he told reporters that the Islamist resistance movement had some reservations over the Egyptian working paper for the reconciliation dialogue. It was exactly the same phrase that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Fatah movement, used in his statements to the press following a meeting with Mubarak in Cairo on Monday morning. Egyptian, Palestinian and other informed Arab diplomats explain that the main reason behind such tactful apprehension is the inability of Fatah, due to inter-movement, Arab, Israeli and American pressure, to meet the kind of demands that Hamas makes, and the ability of Hamas to escape Fatah demands irrespective of the Arab support they come with. According to the assessment of involved sources, agreement in the reconciliation meeting is likely, in varying degrees, on issues related to the formulation of a new government that has the support of Fatah, as controlling the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, currently holding a majority in the elected National Palestinian Council. Agreement is also likely on the extension of the truce brokered by Egypt between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Egyptian sources say that on Thursday last week in Sharm El-Sheikh President Mubarak told visiting Israeli President Shimon Peres that Cairo received the approval of Hamas to expand the truce even if it is still reluctant to actively pursue an end to the prisoners swap deal to allow for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit captured by a Palestinian group loyal to Hamas in June 2006 in return for the release of a few hundred Palestinian prisoners whose names are still to be agreed between Hamas and Israel. Moreover, and most important for Egypt, agreement is also likely on the approval by the National Palestinian Council for the extension of the tenure of Abbas that legally expires in January. Obvious disagreements are likely to be found in relation to security arrangements which cover the fate of security headquarters in Gaza, under the control of Hamas since its takeover of the Strip in June 2007, and the fate of Hamas members held hostage or persecuted in the West Bank, under the control of the Palestinian Authority, by Fatah security apparatus, more often than not in close cooperation and upon the recommendation of Israeli intelligence. This week in Cairo, Abbas insisted that any reconciliation agreement would have to re-establish the full control of his authority over security matters both in relation to the administration of the situation in the occupied territories and the launch or suspension of resistance acts. "One authority and one gun," he said. For his part, speaking in Gaza, Al-Zahar warned that there was no return to the pre-June 2007 set-up. The reluctance of Egypt to release some Hamas members detained for over a year is not making it easier for Cairo to smoothly broker the management of the security package that Fatah wishes, and Hamas categorically refuses to include the presence of an Arab security in Gaza. And according to statements made Monday evening by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa following talks in Cairo with Abbas, "unlike the other factions participating in the reconciliation dialogue, Hamas has not approached the Arab League with its views" on the relevant issues. This said, the political pressure exercised not so equitably on the Palestinian factions, especially Fatah and Hamas, by Egypt, being the host state of the reconciliation dialogue, and the Arab League, as the attempted less anti-Hamas mediator, and other Arab capitals that can promise lucrative financial support to Hamas, could produce some sort of agreement even if "not so long-term" as one well-informed Egyptian source suggests. If secured, year-long Palestinian reconciliation, Egyptian sources say, could help the Palestinian Authority pursue some sort of focussed peace negotiations once a new Israeli government is elected in February and a new US administration puts its hands on the management of the Arab-Israeli struggle a few months later. In the analysis of official Arab diplomatic quarters, when the new US administration comes into office finding the Palestinians in a state of disarray -- several European diplomats in Cairo speak of accounts of Fatah and Hamas trying to win over European sympathy against one another -- it would be unlikely that the US would pick up the suspended negotiations. In his press statements, both after the Peres and Napolitano meetings, Mubarak asserted that the best way to use the next few months is to work on delivering Palestinian reconciliation so as to make the completion of final status negotiations possible once the new US administration resumes attention of the Middle East. In the words of one senior Egyptian diplomat, US Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama has suggested to Cairo, as well as other concerned Arab capitals, that if elected he would assign a US Middle East envoy during the first year of his term in office. Such a positive plan, the diplomat said, could be delayed or obstructed by Palestinian dividedness. Egyptian and Arab diplomats say that overall international, not just US, interest and commitment to the Arab-Israeli file, especially on the Palestinian track, is dwindling and caution that with the overwhelming international financial crisis, less and less attention would be accorded to this issue. In press statements following his meeting with Mubarak and in a speech delivered before the Arab League, the Italian president promised Italian and wider European support to the implementation of any peace agreement once reached. However, there is no European commitment to get more engaged in fast-tracking peace talks in the Middle East. Continuous talk about Palestinian reconciliation and a final status agreement, many Arab capitals seem to believe, prevents an otherwise destructive political vacuum that could spark tougher inter-Palestinian confrontations, block all peace talks and give Israel a pretext to worsen its siege on Gaza and may be too its aggression against both Gaza and the West Bank. According to these capitals such a scenario would put further pressure on Arab governments that are already coming under much scrutiny from their public for failing to spare Palestinians in Gaza from their misery. The UN and independent international organisations recently issued several reports on the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. On Thursday, Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, accused Israel of failing to halt settlement expansion in keeping with the Annapolis protocol, and of violating the Geneva Conventions in Gaza, especially by imposing "collective punishment". Falk recommended that the UN resume economic assistance irrespective of whether Hamas meets political conditions set by Israel. He also suggested that the General Assembly ask the International Court of Justice to conduct an assessment of Israeli actions in Gaza that he said is being put under "siege" by Israel. He added that the UN should ask Switzerland to launch a review of Israel's compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Falk, an American Jewish law professor, had already compared the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews in Germany. Meanwhile, yesterday, and despite the Israeli protests, the second Free Gaza boat, which had set sail from Cyprus Tuesday with a team of international medical doctors and several members of the European Parliament on board, arrived to the shores of Gaza. The Free Gaza movement insisted that it would pursue its objectives to ease the misery of Palestinians in Gaza and would send more ships in the future to provide Gazans with medical help and supplies. Arab capitals and organisations, including the Arab League, have paid little beyond lip service to end the siege on Gaza. This week, the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which has been assisting Palestinians under occupation since 1950, accused Arabs of being tight-fisted when providing financial support to the Palestinians especially during these times of "continuous deterioration of the [humanitarian] situation in Gaza." Moreover, Arab governments are not exactly making it easy for keen civil society groups to expand aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Civil activists in several Arab countries complain that the constraints imposed on them by their governments are prompted by a clear anti-Hamas stance. Arab officials do not react much to these accounts. Instead they talk about reconciliation and peace-making. In the analysis of one Egyptian diplomat what needs to be done now goes beyond the condemnation of Israel to the enforcement of all parties to make the necessary steps, and for that matter refrain from making obstructive moves that could make reconciliation and peace a reality.
