INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW BRIEFING Palestine Divided

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW BRIEFING Palestine Divided

Ramallah/Gaza/Brussels, 17 December 2008: The division between the West Bank and Gaza is set to endure despite the growing number of international actors who acknowledge that without Palestinian unity, a genuine peace process with Israel is unattainable.Palestine Divided,* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, argues that the current reconciliation process between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) is a continuation of their struggle through other means.

Prioritising partisan concerns over the national interest, both see greater cost than reward in compromise. Without regional and international incentives to shift this calculus, Palestine’s political-territorial division will only deepen.“Both Fatah and Hamas want reconciliation, but only on their own terms”, says Robert Blecher, Crisis Group Senior Middle East Analyst. “They see time as an ally in consolidating their positions”.Hamas’s seizure of Gaza and bloody tactics have hardened Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s stance.

His cost-benefit analysis is clear: reconciliation could cost his Fatah movement an administrative and security monopoly in the West Bank and de facto hegemony over the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO); partnership with Hamas might jeopardise negotiations with Israel and international financial support, all for little more than shared control over Gaza.Hamas sees reconciliation as a ploy to deprive it of control over Gaza without commensurate gain. With Gaza firmly in hand, Hamas’s price for inclusion in the political system has risen. Gazans are suffering an acute economic and social crisis, but the Islamic movement is internally secure. Further, as they see it, President Abbas’s domestic legitimacy will be crucially undermined when his presidential term expires on 9 January 2009.

Changing the dynamics that have convinced both Fatah and Hamas that time is on their side will be daunting. At a minimum, it will require both a change in the regional landscape (through U.S. engagement with Syria and Iran) and a clear signal from the international community that this time they would not oppose a Fatah-Hamas partnership; would judge the government not by composition but by its conduct; and would assess the Islamist movement on a more pragmatic basis.“The bottom line is that the kind of unity that seemed possible two years ago has become an appreciably more complicated endeavour”, states Robert Malley, Director of Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program. “It will take a significant shift in the international and regional landscape to achieve it”.

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