The Palestinian president is again soliciting Egypt's strength to keep Hamas inside the box. But, asks Dina Ezzat, is he having any success? Yesterday's meeting between President Hosni Mubarak and visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas might be in a sense a business-as- usual encounter whereby Cairo is briefed on the latest developments on the Palestinian front -- the de facto separation between Gaza and the West Bank that is causing considerable tension to everyone. However, yesterday's meeting in Ras Al-Tin in Alexandria was more than just an opportunity to exchange views on the latest developments. Egypt is currently working closely with the Palestinians on the preparations for the meeting that US President George Bush proposed to give new momentum to the long stifled Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. With the meeting scheduled to take place in or around Washington late October or early November, Egypt -- despite much apprehension -- is intensifying efforts to secure a credible outcome for the meeting. Speaking to reporters following his talks with Mubarak yesterday in Alexandria, the Palestinian chairman said that his top priority now is the upcoming meeting that Washington is planning to hold and its outcome. "We need to reach a workable framework that we can apply," Abbas said. He added that the outcome of the meeting should go way beyond a mere declaration of intentions. "We have long passed this stage," he added. A time-framed launch of final status talks with clear parameters for the settlement of final status issues including the borders of the potential Palestinian state and a fair and legal settlement for East Jerusalem and the plight of Palestinian refugees is what Cairo qualifies as a positive outcome for the meeting. It is this kind of outcome that Egypt believes would really strengthen Abbas in the eyes of his people. "Abbas is still trying to get over the damage his image sustained in the wake of the Hamas take-over of the Gaza Strip last June. While the few small gestures offered by Israel, including the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners, have helped him to somehow come across as the leader who can finalise deals, he still needs image enhancement," commented an Egyptian official. This official added that Egypt's keenness to enhance the image of Abbas is related to its genuine wish to strengthen his stance vis-à-vis Hamas. This, he added, is a necessary prerequisite to secure the success of any potential inter-Palestinian reconciliation process. So far Cairo has failed to arrange for a meeting that could lead to a settlement, even if temporary, of the Hamas-Fatah feud. The main reason for this failure, as informed sources say, is that Hamas has not responded positively to the terms that Egypt wanted for the reconciliation: an end of Hamas's control over Gaza and a Hamas agreement to reframe its role in a judiciary rather than executive format. "Meanwhile, Abbas is still feeling bitter about what happened. He still cannot get over the humiliation. And we understand," the same official said. Palestinian sources say that the defiance of Abbas for any advice to initiate talks with Hamas is categorical. They say that this defiance aborted an attempt by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa to start a low-level Fatah-Hamas dialogue. They add that it also aborted proposals presented by some members of his own Fatah faction who suggested a back-channel talk with Hamas. Palestinian sources also say that Abbas has clearly instructed all Fatah members with an interest in dialogue with Hamas to refrain from executing such a rapprochement or they would be called to order within the Fatah ranks. This warning has included some of his immediate aides who offered to take a personal initiative to engage Hamas on the basis that Abbas would be in a stronger negotiating position with the Americans and Israelis if he managed to regain the full support of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. According to Egyptian sources Abbas is constantly complaining to Egypt over what Hamas has done before and after the Gaza take-over. The sources added that while Abbas has taken some steps to eliminate the role and influence of some of the members of Fatah that have antagonised Hamas the most, he is not ready yet to start a reconciliation process with Hamas. "He said that he offered them much confidence and much support and that they betrayed this confidence by the Gaza take over," the official reported. Yesterday, Abbas renewed his rejection of any reconciliation talks with Hamas. He once again insisted that no mediation from any side is acceptable to him, "until Hamas undoes what it has done in Gaza. Hamas [leaders] know what they did and they know how to undo it," he firmly stated. For now, Egypt does not seem to mind very much that Abbas should take his time to put his act together before he starts a reconciliation process with Hamas. Indeed, Egyptian officials realise that it would not be in the interest of Abbas if he decided for a prompt reconciliation dialogue with Hamas due to the clear opposition that both the Americans and Israelis have made against such move. These officials add that they know for a fact that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plainly told Abbas that her efforts to soften the positions of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would be gravely undermined should Abbas re-engage Hamas. Olmert for his part has publicly all but directly prohibited Abbas from resuming relations with Hamas if he wishes to continue regular meetings with the Israeli prime minister. On his part, Abbas repeated many times that it is the actions of Hamas, not his rejection to pursue a bi-factional rapprochement, that is weakening the Palestinian position vis-à-vis the Israeli position. However, Egypt does not believe it is in the long-term interests of Abbas or for that matter its own interest to keep Hamas painted in a corner for long. Egyptian officials say that Egypt is opposed in no uncertain terms to the political platform of Hamas and to its conduct in Gaza last June. Egypt is against launching a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation process on the basis that both groups are treated on an equal footing. "For us Abbas, who happens to chair Fatah, is the representative of Palestinian legitimacy and he should be treated as such. This means that he cannot be equated to, say, Khaled Meshaal, the chief of the Hamas Political Bureau," commented a senior Egyptian diplomat who asked for his name to be withheld. Actually, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit reportedly made a similar statement during a recent Arab foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo to protest against a proposal forwarded by Secretary-General Moussa in relation to the possible launch of an inter-Palestinian reconciliation process. But for Egypt there is a difference between keeping Hamas second and ignoring Hamas altogether. Pragmatism, Egyptian official insist, requires that Egypt should not leave Hamas feeling its back is up against a wall. It is the need to walk this fine line that Egypt is hoping for Abbas as well as the Israelis and Americans to see. Blurring this line, Egyptian officials say, could simply prompt some miscalculated moves on the part of Hamas that has already given Cairo headaches with the arms smuggling in and out Sinai. This week, Egyptian security forces seized large quantities of explosives in Sinai.
