Joe Dyke & Shatha Yaish -
Alandmark Palestinian unity deal poses a dilemma for the international community if it succeeds: how to deal with Hamas, Israel’s longtime foe which is considered a terrorist organisation by much of the world.
Under the Egyptian-brokered agreement, Hamas will by December 1 hand over Gaza to the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority (PA), which is based in the West Bank.
The two sides and other factions will also seek to form a unity government, while Hamas could eventually join the Palestine Liberation Organisation — Israel’s primary negotiating partner in peace talks. There was no indication that Hamas would disband its vast military wing.
Western diplomats simultaneously welcomed the potential end to the decade-long split and expressed concern about Hamas joining the official Palestinian government.
The United States, Israel and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organisation.
The agreement signed in Cairo on Thursday could also complicate US President Donald Trump’s plan to restart frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Israel said the agreement made such negotiations harder.
But Western diplomats said there were potential workarounds that could enable them to continue working with a government that included Hamas members.
“It is difficult to imagine Hamas giving up violence overnight,” one said on condition of anonymity.
“But a compromise might be possible to allow us to work with the government even with Hamas’s backing.”
The United Nations, Arab League and Western countries welcomed Thursday’s reconciliation plan, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying it could help ease Gaza’s suffering.
The division between the two non-contiguous Palestinian territories has complicated peace negotiations with Israel. Handing over Gaza’s government to the PA could help loosen the blockades and unlock masses of international funding to develop crippled infrastructure.
Ghassan Khatib, a professor of politics at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said he thought Hamas no longer wanted to govern.
“Hamas finds ruling a burden that is affecting its popularity. It wants to get rid of this burden and put it into the PA’s hands,” he said.
But Hamas officials have rejected the idea of giving up their weapons.
A European diplomat said they would be wary of accepting a situation similar to Lebanon, where Hezbollah maintains a
military wing independent of the government.
“We would need Hamas to visibly give up day to day security” before committing to major infrastructure funding projects, he said.
After the deal was signed, Israel said any Palestinian government must commit to the so-called principles of the international Quartet on Middle East peace. These expressly demand recognition of Israel and renouncing violence as a tactic. Hamas has done neither.
US law prohibits material support or resources for designated terrorist organisations, potentially complicating funding for a Hamas-backed Palestinian government.
The US is one of the largest donors to the Palestinian government, providing 265 million shekels ($75 million) in budget support between January and August this year, according to the finance ministry.
But Western diplomats said there are ways in which they could support the government even if Hamas were part of it.
Under one plan, individual ministers would renounce their membership of Hamas and commit to the Quartet principles, even if the party did not.
“I don’t know if we would have direct meetings with those specific ministers, but we could work with the government in general,” another Western diplomat said.
Similar schemes have been imagined in previous failed reconciliation agreements. — AFP
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