CIAO DATE: 08/2011
July 2011
"Palestinian Reconciliation: Plus Ça Change…", the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the motivations that prompted the two movements to sign the Egyptian-sponsored agreement in May. Prime among these were changes on the international and regional scenes. Declining Palestinian confidence in negotiations and in the U.S., coupled with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, led Fatah and President Mahmoud Abbas to opt for a strategic reorientation of which reconciliation was one component. Likewise, changes in Egypt led the Islamist movement Hamas to gravitate toward Cairo and accept its proposal, even as popular unrest in Syria called into question the sustainability of its close ties to President Assad’s regime. “There were several reasons why the parties at long last reached an agreement, though a genuine change of heart was not one of them”, says Robert Blecher, Crisis Group’s Arab-Israeli Project Director. “Neither Fatah nor Hamas changed its views of the other, and their mutual mistrust did not somehow evaporate. Rather, the accord was yet another unpredictable manifestation of the Arab Spring”. Yet, while it took four years for the parties finally to reach an accord, that may well turn out to be the easiest part. At bottom, neither movement has fully reconciled itself to reconciliation, both believe time will prove it right, and both fear the consequences of compromise. The single most important stumbling block so far has been the identity of the prime minister, but there are many more.
Resource link: Palestinian Reconciliation: Plus Ça Change... [PDF] - 1.7M