Egypt's call for inter-Palestinian dialogue might yet succeed, writes Amira Howeidy Few Arab or regional "peace" summits in the past decade have managed to surprise observers. With the exception of the 15th Arab Summit held in Sharm El-Sheikh a week before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when a row between Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz was aired live, Arab meetings have tended to live up to their reputation for dullness. Expectations ahead of the 25 June four-way summit in Sharm El-Sheikh between Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, were as lacklustre as ever. Officially, the summit was meant to revive the stalled "peace process", declared "dead" by the Arab League's secretary-general last summer, though no one was in any doubt that the repercussions of Hamas's take over of Gaza two weeks ago would be at the top of the agenda. The international community and Arab governments had been quick to side with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and recognise his "emergency" cabinet after he sacked the Hamas-led Ismail Haniyeh government, and the Sharm El-Sheikh summit seemed set to devise mechanisms to follow through on this recognition. Ahead of the summit, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert floated promises to boost Abbas's position in the occupied West Bank. Nascent Israeli-American plans to turn the West Bank into a paradise for its Palestinian residents -- despite the apartheid wall, illegal Israeli settlements and over 500 military checkpoints -- as opposed to the miserable and inhumane conditions to be suffered by Palestinians under "Hamastan", gained wide coverage in the Israeli, American and, in some cases, Arab media. Saudi Arabia, which brokered the Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas last February, announced it did not want to be involved in the conflict while in Egypt the state-run media continued to sound alarm bells about the sudden appearance of an "Islamic emirate" just across the border. Leftist and secular intellectuals lent their voices to the furore, and Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit upped the ante even further when he accused Iran of threatening "Egypt's national security". On Sunday, President Hosni Mubarak described what happened in Gaza as a "coup de force". The Sharm El-Sheikh summit, it seemed clear, would furnish yet another opportunity for the "moderate" camp to voice their condemnation of "extremists". Such predictions, though, proved wrong. While Olmert spoke of peace and avoided meaningful offers, Abbas reminded the gathering of the exhaustive list of "peace" agreements and initiatives. President Mubarak struck a different tone when he insisted on Palestinian unity. There is no alternative to dialogue between both sides, he said. In other words, Fatah and Hamas have to talk to each other. The following day Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz and Mubarak held a meeting in which the call for dialogue between the Palestinians was reiterated. In an interview with state-run TV on the same day, Mubarak said Hamas's control of Gaza "does not pose a threat to Egypt's national security". Also on Tuesday Mubarak told the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot that Egypt's security delegation -- which had moved to Ramallah following Hamas's seizure of Gaza -- would return once things calmed down. Hamas's leadership, which had initially criticised the Sharm El-Sheikh four-way summit, applauded Mubarak's insistence on dialogue. Mubarak's call, said Haniyeh, "stems from a realisation that the complex situation can only be resolved through dialogue". Both Abbas and Olmert kept mum. While Egypt's change of heart surprised many, there had been signs ahead of the Sharm El-Sheikh summit that Cairo's approach towards the Gaza crisis was changing. Following an official invitation from Egypt, Ramadan Shallah, a leader of the Damascus-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad, arrived in Cairo on Friday to discuss ways out for the current impasse. According to Shallah, who held talks with Egyptian intelligence officials, there was agreement on the need for Hamas and Fatah to talk. The problem, he said, was Abbas's refusal. Bashir Nafi, a Palestinian academic and historian, believes the points of discussion between Shallah and Egyptian officials could form the basis of any dialogue between Hamas and Fatah. The points are: moving the Palestinian Authority back to Gaza after Hamas steps down; rebuilding the security apparatuses on professional, rather than factional, foundations; the resignation of the Abbas- appointed Salam Fayyad cabinet by the end of the month and the formation of a government of technocrats. "Hamas will have to make concessions," he said. "The question is will it accept?" Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly on Wednesday, Hamas legislator Mushir Al-Masry said his movement wants Palestinian security institutions to be restructured away from partisan affiliations. Asked if Hamas is ready to step down, Al-Masry said, "[the Palestinian Authority] is not our goal, it's a means to lift the injustice and end the corruption that has haunted us for a decade." While Fatah's leadership has yet to officially declare its response to Egypt's invitation, Mubarak seemed confident that the dialogue will take place "once there is calm". While Cairo has been hosting inter-Palestinian dialogues for the past three years, its role, say observers, has been confined to that of mediator and sponsor. This time round, however, Cairo wants the Palestinians to sit together because it also involves Egypt, or at least its eastern border, which may account for Mubarak's surprising call in Sharm El-Sheikh. "There are a lot of unanswered questions here," says political analyst Gamil Mattar, "and Egypt's U- turn remains perplexing." Did it stem from the realisation that the Palestinians in Gaza want Hamas, he asks. "Or should we take into account what is happening in Sinai, which isn't simple. What happens in Sinai is almost always linked to the dynamics on the other side of the border." The 1979 Camp David treaty between Egypt and Israel strictly limits Egyptian forces in area C, which runs along the eastern border of the Sinai and covers approximately one- third of the total area of the peninsula, to a lightly-armed police presence. It is in this buffer zone that three bombings targetting Israeli tourists occurred three years ago. If the situation in Gaza continues as it is, says Mattar, Egypt will have to protect its borders "not from an Islamic emirate, which is nonsense talk" but from an isolated, explosive and frustrated Gaza. "Egypt does not want this responsibility." Abbas's own Israeli and American-leaning stand during the crisis might have provoked Egypt, says Nafi, and Cairo's "sense of danger as a result of the separation of Gaza and the West Bank could have pushed it to pull the brakes". Abdel-Qader Yassin, a Cairo-based leftist Palestinian expert, believes the Gaza crisis has alienated the "corrupt" elements within Fatah -- led by national security advisor Mohamed Dahlan -- who were behind most of the tensions between Hamas and Abbas. "Despite the ugliness and the blood something good could come out of Gaza if it paves the way for a healthier inter-Palestinian dialogue."
