Spontaneous popular action on the part of Palestinians in Gaza left all political players reeling last week, sparking an influx of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians -- near half of the Gaza Strip population -- into the Egyptian Sinai, desperate for food, fuel, medical supplies and other basic necessities of life. Can the genie be put back in the bottle? And should it? New dawn When the walls collapsed, so did the red lines drawn by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, writes Saleh Al-Naami from Gaza Packed on top of one another in a service taxi running between Rafah to Arish, 15 Gazans could agree on something: that events at the Egypt- Gaza border confirmed that the only way forward was inter-Palestinian dialogue aimed at producing a national consensus over solutions to all Palestinian problems. Had such a dialogue existed before, the people of Gaza would not have found themselves so isolated, denied other options but to break out as they did. "Israel is keeping the border closed on the grounds that [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas's security forces are not in Gaza, but Abbas isn't interested in solving this problem because he wants to put pressure on the Hamas government," Mohamed Al-Shahid, a dentist on his way to Arish in the hope of buying much needed supplies for his private clinic, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Zaher Khalil agreed. It was down to Abbas now to alleviate the pressures on Egypt by announcing his willingness to come to an agreement regarding the split between Fatah and Hamas. Many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza regard the border breach in Rafah as an unqualified victory for Hamas and the beginning of the end of the Israeli siege strategy against the Palestinian people. Maamoun Al-Tamimi, a Palestinian writer and economist from Jerusalem, believes that the ball is now firmly in the court of Abbas. "The Palestinians are overwhelmingly sympathetic to Hamas following what happened, and they support the actions along the border with Egypt which have caused considerable embarrassment to the Palestinian leadership headed by Abbas," he said. Even someone as close to Abbas as the prominent scholar Mahdi Abdel-Hadi cannot help but to agree. The Gaza-Egypt border breach, he said, has weakened Abbas not only in Gaza but in the West Bank as well. The editor of the Fatah mouthpiece Al-Bayadir Al-Sayasi drew the same conclusion and added that Abbas's only way out of his current predicament is to open a channel of dialogue with Hamas as soon as possible. The most salient signal that many Fatah leaders have absorbed this lesson is their joining various grassroots committees that recently came into being with the purpose of generating a climate conducive to national reconciliation. Moreover, several Fatah leaders in Gaza agreed to interviews with the Hamas-controlled Al-Aqsa satellite news channel, in spite of the fact that the Salam Fayyad government explicitly cautioned that cooperating with that channel was a punishable offensive. In an effort to stem their eroding popularity, Abbas and the rest of the Fatah leadership are currently trying to convince Israel to re-open the Rafah crossing in accordance with the American- brokered agreement reached between Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the EU ( see box) in 2005, which was suspended following Hamas's takeover of Gaza last June. Israel is so far reluctant to meet this demand, insisting that the agreement be amended to permit for an Israeli security presence at the crossing. Hamas also insists that the agreement be amended, but to provide for exclusively joint Egyptian-Palestinian control of the crossing. Despite the tide of opinion, Abbas is still refusing to enter into dialogue with Hamas -- something that Israel rejects adamantly. On Monday, Haaretz reported that in his last meeting with Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stressed his opposition to talks between the PA and Hamas. The newspaper quoted an Israeli source present at that meeting as saying that Abbas agreed with Olmert immediately. Nonetheless, Hamas clearly gained from recent events, which necessarily entails a weakening of Abbas. According to Yuram Kidar, an expert in Palestinian-Israeli relations in Bar-Ilan University, "what happened is proof of the collapse of the blockade strategy that the Israeli government believed would topple the Hamas government. This means that the Hamas government will remain in power next to us for a very long time to come." Perhaps in reaction, some senior Israeli political and military officials saw the occasion to market a "new" solution that in reality is not new at all. Their advice was for Israel to rid itself of the responsibility of providing for the essential needs of Palestinians in Gaza by forcing Egypt to assume administrative control of the Strip. Former chairman of the Israeli National Security Council General Giora Eilan suggested how. Israel, he said, should halt delivery to Gaza of all fuel and economic necessities and eliminate Gaza from the customs agreement that obliges Israel to allow Gazan merchants to import and export goods via Israeli ports. However, it is not so easy for Israel to abandon its responsibilities. Most Israeli legal scholars interviewed in Israeli media agree that Israel, as an occupying power, is obliged under international humanitarian law to provide the essential needs of the people in Gaza. The argument that Israel "unilaterally disengaged" from Gaza does not hold water. As General Yom Tov Samiah, former chief of the Israeli occupation army's southern command pointed out, ongoing military operations in Gaza furnish the international community with adequate proof that Israel retains -- or attempts to -- military control over Gaza. Other senior Israeli officials have offered another solution, which is to build a cement wall along Gaza's borders with Egypt and Israel. They argue that this will hamper the Palestinians' ability to smuggle arms from Egypt into Gaza or infiltrate Israel. One of these officials, Deputy Minister of Defence Matan Valnai, suggested that Egypt would have to be involved in the construction of such a wall, but added that it would entail the destruction of hundreds of houses on both sides of the border at Rafah. Ron Ben Yishai, military correspondent on Ynet, an informed Israeli news website, felt that Israel should intensify its intelligence activities in the Sinai "so that we are not taken by surprise by things we haven't taken into account." For its part, Haaretz warned against actions that could provoke Egypt. The state of peace with Egypt is Israel's most important strategic asset and must not be tampered with, its Sunday editorial said. "The security of hundreds of thousands of Israelis is contingent on Egypt's good intentions," it cautioned, adding that Israel should allow Egypt to supply Palestinian consumer needs in Gaza. It concluded that what happened on the Gaza-Egypt border was not just a breach of a wall, but "a change in strategy that laid Israeli policy bare." Haaretz Arab affairs commentator Zvi Barel made a similar point. Israel's policy of driving the Palestinians to rebel against Hamas has failed, he wrote. "The theory that it is possible to counter terrorism by penning an entire geographical region behind a wall has collapsed," he wrote. "The policy that sought to stir civil disobedience against the Hamas leadership has collapsed and the monopoly that Israel had retained for itself over the peace process has turned to dust. Now it will be even more difficult for the Palestinian partner to enter into negotiations with Israel." Barel found Abbas's current position particularly "pitiful" -- "all the more so when the Palestinian president states that it is not possible to hold negotiations in light of the situation in Gaza, as though there were negotiations in progress to begin with!" he said. Some Israeli officials have begun to openly advocate negotiating with Hamas. In last Sunday's Yediot Aharonot, political commentator Shamoun Shafer observed that at a time when Olmert is instructing Abbas not to talk with Hamas, a number of Israeli officials have begun to examine the possibility of entering into a dialogue with the Palestinian resistance movement in order to reach an understanding over rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, the blockade and the fate of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. As remarkable as this irony is, Palestinians realise that it is not talks between Hamas and Israel that are needed, but rather talks between Hamas and Abbas. They are also painfully aware that, in light of current positions of both sides, it will take forceful persuasion on the part of an Arab third party to get the two sides to sit together and map out a formula for a comprehensive national reconciliation.
