Op-ed


Fatah leader and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas finally acquiesced to Hamas leader and prime minister Ismail Haniyeh. A Palestinian 'unity' government is now being formed.

It'll give beleaguered Fatah some six ministries. That's the deal after the two warring factions signed the Mecca Accord, mediated by Saudi Arabia, in Islam's holiest city on Feb. 8.

Haniyeh says the new deal makes winners of all Palestinians. But the Accord is dyspepsiac. With the ink barely dry, old animosities have again sharply resurfaced.

That's not all. The Accord's fallout is regionally onerous. It'll jeopardize the peace Roadmap championed by the US and Israel. Indeed both, mute since the Accord was signed, told Abbas on the eve of their Feb 19 meeting that they won't deal with the new government.

Any future talks with Abbas will be made doubly difficult if Fatah is usurped by Hamas.

That finality may end in more bloodshed between Fatah's and Hamas' supporters. Civil war cannot yet be discounted. That condition could worsen sooner rather than later as both factions now wrangle over cabinet posts and policies.

Already it's coming to a head: less than a week after the Accord was signed gunmen shot out the windows of a Hamas minister, and, separately, Abbas had abruptly cancelled nationally televised speech. He's angry Hamas is marginalizing him. But why should that surprise him?

The Accord's spoils are driving Abbas mad. Hamas has controlled the interior ministry, so it controls the Executive Force effectively Hamas's 6,000-strong militia.

Also, Hamas has been radically reinterpreting the Accord, layering it with new conditions. Whilst Abbas and Haniyeh may have agreed to an independent taking the crucial interior ministry, Hamas continues to insist it'll appoint the minister and Fatah will merely rubber-stamp the decision.

Half-baked accord

The new complexities in this power struggle are courtesy of the Saudis brokering the half-baked Accord. Abbas and Haniyeh's boss, the Syria-based Khaled Meshal, signed on the dotted line but only after Riyadh promised US$1 billion in financial aid for starters.

The Accord was penned on false premises. What's not false, though, is the very real possibility that the Accord may intensify the internecine Hamas-Fatah power struggle.

The Accord leaves unanswered who'll control the security forces, and if armed groups from both sides will be contained or disbanded. More, Hamas is not compelled Hamas to renounce its bloody fanaticism to annihilate Israel.

Also, once a unity government is formed, will the seat of power be Haniyeh's Gaza or Abbas' Ramallah in the West Bank? The Israelis and Americans would prefer Ramallah, for politically symbolic reasons, but Hamas will make Gaza the political capital of a future Palestinian state until the contested Jerusalem question with Israel is resolved, if ever.

There's no doubt the Accord delivers Hamas greater centralized power, even if the economy is dead. Abbas is under serious siege. His political legitimacy is tattered. Abbas' supporters say he caved in to Hamas' demands by signing the Accord. Probably the Americans and Israelis do too.

And never mind if Abbas thought the deal could avert a Palestinian civil war arguably also the principle motivation behind the Saudi mediation.

Abbas has been greatly weakened over the past year. Yet he claims he still wields considerable power. He's kidding himself. As Hamas' putsch against Abbas grew stronger the last few months, Washington hurriedly promised Abbas US$86 million to bolster security forces under his command, and Tel Aviv would return US$100 million of withheld taxes to Abbas-controlled accounts.

All this after Palestinian voters had crushed Abbas and Fatah by handing the Shi'ite Hamas a crunching landslide victory in the January 2006 elections a result the US and Israel have spurned.

Coming to nought

The Mecca Accord adds huge anxieties to the various peace initiatives from the Americans and Israelis, the Egyptians and Jordanians, and the Syrians and Saudis to produce a final two-state solution.

All have looked intractable as other powerful forces emerged. The Saudis were enlisted, quietly by Washington, in a bid to counter growing Shi'ite Iran's influence over the Sunni Arab Middle East.

Abbas has being succored so far by Israel and the US. But both will now question if Abbas remains their best chance for reviving the long-stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Already, at the Quartet the UN, the US, Russia and the EU meeting in Berlin on Feb 21, the writing is on the wall.

It's doubtful if Abbas still speaks for all Palestinians. More, the Accord seriously proscribes his chances of delivering any deal with Israel. He's defeated. Abbas told the US before the tripartite meeting between himself, the US and Israel that he has done all that he can a claim unlikely to surprise his supporters.

Like the Accord, the Berlin summit's outcome came to naught. In fact there's now an even chance the Quartet could collapse into hopelessness, thus gravely risking several peace initiatives into which Washington has immensely invested its tottering Middle East policy.

But the Mecca Accord directly, and inadvertently, confronts the Roadmap that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been desperately trying to reinvigorate in recent months.

Israel is feverishly hoping the Quartet won't crumble. There are rumors the EU and Russia could go it alone in recognizing the Hamas-led 'unity' government.

But the EU says Hamas is a terrorist organization, and it won't act to legitimize Hamas nor infuriate Washington and the powerful Jewish lobby. Still, there's growing frustration in some European capitals and Moscow of Washington's unflinching support for Israel's intransigence to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories to its pre-1967 borders.

Islamic Jihad

The intransigence is directly feeding anti-American frenzy by Jihadists in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world, including Pakistan.

The Mecca Accord won't resolve the Hamas-Fatah bloody rivalry. In fact it could unleash other Islamo-fascist forces throughout the Middle East. Particularly worrying is the growing influence by the Cairo-based Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offspring, and which enjoys a cozy relationship with the Saudi Wahabist regime, and unstoppable rise of the murderous Islamic Jihad.

It's questionable if Hamas can hold out against the West's prolonged and debilitating economic sanctions. Nor is it likely that other Arab states will come to Hamas' rescue bar Iran and Syria.

And that's the problem. Israel and the US must now seriously consider giving solid ground to the Palestinians if they want Hamas and others to abandon their stance against Israel.

Otherwise the shadows of Baghdad or Beirut-like fear and loathing will befall all Palestine territories including the West Bank, about which Jordan frets escalating, inevitably, to a long and terrible terrorist war with Israel and other pro-US regimes in the Middle East.