"Landep News"
Khaled Meshaal and Mahmoud Abbas
The move to set up an unity government is linked to the meeting the leader of Fatah Mahmoud Abbas will have with Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas. The two leaders are expected to meet in Cairo, with the mediation of the Egyptian security forces, and to set the stage for general elections next May.
Hamas and Fatah met last May in Cairo and agreed to participate in elections as a united force of the Palestinian people. They agreed to divide the position in the state and the offices that are to be elected.
Since then though little was done to actually make the plan work. Abbas made a move that did not meet the approval of Hamas, by maintaining in office prime minister Fayyad, to whom they objected. Fayyad was a guarantee for Ramallah that the Americans and Israel would continue supporting financially the Palestinian Authority.
In September the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas forwarded a statehood bid by the United Nations Security Council. Abbas was counting on international support, and he even enlisted much of it from the countries around the world, but his bid was foiled in the Security Council, which had to postpone the vote on the statehood, after the admittance committee said that the country was not prepared for statehood and was not a peace loving nation.
Abbas won a morale victory in the UNESCO agency, where his country has been received as full member, drawing hard criticism from Israel and the United States, which cut off is financial support.
Hamas never agreed to statehood bid by the United States, and anticipated the defeat of president Abbas. However, to score a point, the leading faction in Gaza cut a deal with the Israeli government in which it exchanged soldier Gilad Shalit for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. The move was deemed as a great success for Hamas, though they were however accused of having negotiated mostly the release of their Hamas comrades, leaving in prison those from the Fatah.
The latest developments in the region changed the perspective of both Hamas and Fatah leaders. First off, Mahmoud Abbas has no reasons to insist on keeping the prime minister since the Americans intend to cut his funds off and the Israelis are taking their time with collecting their taxes.
So, with a new government it is not clear yet who will replace Fayyad as PM, but Hamas seems to have victory assured in the next elections, considering that Abbas said he would not run for another term in office, and without him the Fatah does not have a serious candidate.
Even though the reconciliation has as a result the victory of one of the two factions, it is no reason to believe, the Israeli Haaretz argues, that the reconciliation would last very long.
If Fatah wins the elections, it is highly improbable that Hamas would lay down arms, and, conversely, if Hamas wins it is much unlikely that Fatah would give them the offices too soon.
Fatah and Hamas are expected to establish in Cairo, apart from a unity government, a Central Election Commission, an election court and the restructuring of the security services.
A meeting of the Palestinian umbrella group PLO, Palestinian Liberation Organization, conducted on Tuesday night urged the national reconciliation to be speeded up.
The prospect of Hamas taking over the Palestinian territories is preoccupying the Israeli government, prompting foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman to criticize the plan known as the three-state solution, which refers to creating a Palestinian state in Jordan, by uniting the West Bank with Jordan.
Such a plan, Lieberman argued, would go against internationally recognized borders and would risk to turn Jordan, which already has a Palestinian majority, into a Palestinian de facto state.
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