Sunday, June 13, 2010

Hamas nixes Abbas' reconciliation talks


KHALED ABU TOAMEH
06/13/2010

Arab League rep. to visit Gaza, discuss ending the Fatah-Hamas crisis.

Hamas has rejected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s offer to dispatch a Fatah delegation to the Gaza Strip to discuss ways of ending the power struggle between the two parties, Fatah officials in Ramallah said over the weekend. Hamas’s refusal to receive the delegation comes as the two sides face growing pressure from several Arab and Islamic countries to patch up their differences so as to pave the way for the lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip.

The pressure on Hamas and Fatah intensified following the flotilla aid ship incident about two weeks ago.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa is scheduled to visit the Gaza Strip this week for the first time ever to discuss prospects of ending the Fatah-Hamas crisis. Several Arab diplomats from the Arab League arrived in the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing over the weekend to prepare for Moussa’s visit.

Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official closely associated with Abbas, said that, contrary to reports in the Arab media, the PA president had no plans to visit the Gaza Strip in the near future.

Ahmed said that such a visit would only consolidate the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “Such a visit would be a crime because it would deepen the division between Gaza Strip and West Bank,” he said. “The president should go to the Gaza Strip only to have it handed back to his authority and to see the [Hamas] coup end.”

Ahmed, who has been entrusted by Abbas with trying to reach out to Hamas, said that representatives of the movement informed him last week of their opposition to Abbas’s initiative to dispatch a delegation to the Gaza Strip to hold talks on ways of ending the crisis.

Delegation was to include PLO, Fatah members

The PA leadership decided to send representatives to the Gaza Strip immediately after the flotilla incident. The delegation was supposed to include senior members of the PLO and Fatah, in addition to Palestinian businessman Munib al-Masri, who has been acting as a mediator between the two sides for more than a year.

Last week Abbas met in Jordan with Jamal al-Khudari, an independent legislator from the Gaza Strip, who is also acting as a mediator between Hamas and Fatah. According to various sources, Abbas asked the legislator to relay a message to Hamas leaders to the effect that Fatah was keen on ending the rift and would even be willing to make concessions to achieve that goal.

The sources revealed that Khudari was trying to persuade the two parties to agree to a plan to open Gaza City’s sea port and place it under the supervision of a European party.

According to the plan, goods would be directed to a port in Greece, where they would be checked before being escorted to the Gaza Strip by European monitors. The plan also allows European monitors to check the cargos at the Greek port.

Comment: Hamas believes it is "winning' by virtue of the flotilla incident. The media is on its side, public opinion outside of Israel is on its side-even multiple world leaders (EU) support Hamas's position regarding the blockade. Fatah is broken, Abbas has no gravitas, no ability to even govern in the disputed territories. Iran, Syria and Turkey are shifting the sands of power here so why hold any talks with Fatah to reconcile with Fatah-in their minds it is only a matter of time. Meanwhile in Washington, the response is to give them 400 million more dollars with no accountability of expenditure-the same old worn out song that has produced the conditions we have today-this is the hope and change you voted for?Need I remind you America is broke?

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