Palestinians during a sit-in before the former prime minister Ismael Hanyia’s house to support Palestinian reconciliation. Credit: Khaled Alashqar/IPS

By Khaled Alashqar
GAZA CITY, Jun 4 2014 (IPS)

The formation of a new Palestinian government between Fatah and Hamas announced on Monday is an important station on the path to reconciliation, “but there still many stations to be reached before achieving real unity based on partnership among all Palestinians.”

With these words, Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGOs network in the Gaza Strip, welcomed the government of national consensus, but told IPS that all decisions previously taken during the period of division should now be cancelled.

“The formation of a government of consensus imposes major responsibilities on us as civil institutions to work on enforcing the reconciliation agreement and contribute effectively to national action on the grounds of partnership in the formulation of national plans.”"The formation of a government of consensus imposes major responsibilities on us as civil institutions to work on enforcing the reconciliation agreement” – Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGOs network in the Gaza Strip

“We demand that Palestinian rights be ensured, including reopening of all closed societies during the time of division and realisation of the rule of law,” Amjad Al-Shawa added.

The new Palestinian government announced to put an end to the political division between Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is the third government headed by Ramy Al Hamdallah, who succeeded former Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, and is the 17^th government since the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994.

The Palestinian unity government was sworn in at the PLO headquarters in Ramallah, in the presence of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Four ministers from Gaza were unable to attend after Israel denied their access to the West Bank.

The role of the government of national consensus is to prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories in addition to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, which indicates the intention of the new government to give priority to Gaza and try to break the blockade since the Hamas government took office in mid-June 2007.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a televised address to the Palestinian people that the new government would mean the end of internal division which has harmed the Palestinian cause, saying that the new government is a transitional government, whose mission is to prepare for elections.

Abbas stressed that, like its predecessors, the national consensus government remains committed to the agreement signed internationally by the Palestinian National Authority, and to the political programme adopted by the institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

The mandate for political negotiations, he stressed, will remain with the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

He warned Israel that any punitive actions prejudicial to the interests of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government would not pass without an appropriate response.

The Palestinian President’s remarks clearly reflect Palestinian concern about the possibility of the punitive action from Israel that has been voiced by members of the Netanyahu government if the process of reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas continues.

These threats concern Hamas in particular, the militant Islamic faction that Israel and many Western countries consider a terrorist organisation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not take long to act following the announcement of the new Palestinian government. His Political-Security Cabinet was immediately summoned for an urgent meeting to discuss ways of responding to the Palestinian Authority as a result of the joint government with Hamas.

The Cabinet decided to grant Netanyahu authority to impose sanctions on the Palestinian National Authority and the government of reconciliation without specifying the details.

Observers say that this is a sign that that the Israeli cabinet has chosen a centrist path to satisfy two extremes: the headstrong Naftali Bennett,Minister of the Economy and the leader of the right-wing ‘The Jewish Home’ political party, who rejects any settlement or compromise with the Palestinians, demanding punishment and annexation of their land to bring it under “Israeli sovereignty”, and Yair Lapid, Minister of Finance and chairman of the Yesh Atid (There is a Future) political party, who called for waiting, joining Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said that the Israeli government  should not rush to respond to the Palestinians.

The Hamas Government in the Gaza Strip, which has spent seven years ruling Gaza under a tight Israeli siege, almost continuous closure of crossings leading to Gaza and successive financial crises, has stepped down and Ismail Haniya, former Prime Minister of the government in Gaza told a press conference that he welcomed the new Palestinian consensus government and stressed the need to end division.

One of the challenges facing the new Palestinian government is to repair Gaza’s relationship with Egypt, which is now expected to open the Rafah crossing which links the Gaza Strip with the rest of world. Egypt had placed the formation of a national government of unity as a condition for opening the Rafah crossing.

Meanwhile, Egypt welcomed the formation of the new Palestinian government. In a statement Monday, Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson Badr Abdel–Atti said: “The formation of a government of Palestinian national consensus is an important step to support Palestinian unity and the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination and establishment of their own independent and sovereign state based on the borders of 4 June 1967.”

The next few days will be very important for how the new Palestinian Government goes about exercising its functions, especially in the Gaza Strip, which has suffered greatly during years of abuses and violations of the rights of individuals and institutions.

The new Government will need time and concrete steps on the ground to restore the confidence of the Palestinian people.

Israel is the only country to have rejected the alliance between former rivals Hamas and Fatah. Credit: Zack Baddorf/ZUMA Press/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 4 2014 (IPS)

The United States’ decision to “work with” the new Palestinian government has virtually isolated Israel: the only country so far to have publicly rejected the political alliance between Fatah and Hamas.

“Not a single nation has heeded Israel’s futile call to boycott the new unity government,” said Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine to the United Nations.

The new government, joining rivals Fatah, which controlled the West Bank, and Hamas, which ruled Gaza, was enjoying support from countries around the world, except Israel, he said

“This is a significant development and in line with the national interests of the Palestinian people,” Mansour added.

"[I]t is in Israel's interest to have the two parts of Palestine in a kind of political congestion suffocating for lack of a pathway to liberation and peace." -- Vijay Prashad, Edward Said chair at the American University in Beirut (AUB)
Israel, one of the closest allies of the U.S., has already launched a scathing attack on the administration of President Barack Obama, describing U.S. recognition as “American naivete”.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations stands ready to lend its “full support” to the newly formed government in its effort to reunite the West Bank and Gaza, in line with the intra-Palestinian unity agreement of Apr. 23, under one legitimate Palestinian authority.

This, he pointed out, includes addressing the serious political, security, humanitarian and economic challenges in Gaza, and holding long overdue elections.

Asked if this means “U.N. recognition” of the new unity government, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters: “The issue of recognition of governments is one that is up to member states.

Dr. James E. Jennings, president of Conscience International and executive director of US Academics for Peace, told IPS, “The new Palestinian government has already conceded to Israel what the Zionist state has long demanded: that Palestinian leaders recognise Israel, thus essentially conceding Israel’s right to exist.”

Further, he said, Fatah’s leadership of the coalition, with its built-in security agreement with Israel, means the new Palestinian government also agrees to operate behind the apartheid wall as a demilitarised entity dismembered by scattered Jewish settlements under the protection of Israel and its intrusive security services.

“Even if the new government survives, the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza will continue to be dominated by realities imposed by Israel backed by its indulgent uncle, the United States,” said Jennings.

While Mahmoud Abbas will continue to remain President of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, the new 17-member cabinet will be headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, described as a linguist and a former university president.

Clarifying the political nuances of the agreement, the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) said the new government is “composed of a consensus cabinet consisting of individuals agreed upon by all of the major Palestinian political parties.”

The cabinet does not include members of the two largest Palestinian parties, Fatah or Hamas.

Instead, it is made up of independent technocrats whose job is to prepare the groundwork for elections for the Palestinian Authority.

Although Hamas supports the government, none of the members of the new cabinet is affiliated with Hamas, IMEU said in a statement released Tuesday.

Hamas remains designated a “terrorist group” by Israel, the United States and some of the Western European nations.

“Fascinating development,” Vijay Prashad, Edward Said chair at the American University in Beirut (AUB), told IPS. “But it is taking place for all the wrong reasons.”

Hamas is weakened by the strangulation of the Gaza economy by a combination of the (normal) Israeli garrote and the Egyptian closure of the tunnels and checkpoints, he added.

“With little easy access to regional and international markets, Gaza faces financial desperation – and this on top of the normal de-development and financial pressures.”

Prashad said Hamas had no good choices available to it because Gulf money is not a long-term solution or (in this time of a shakeup) a short-term option.

The international agencies (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) all ask for reforms that are not an option for a small region that is essentially a permanent sanctions economy, he said.

“Hamas had to surrender to the neo-liberal policy slate that has become the main policy agenda for the Abbas-led government in the West Bank,” said Prashad, co-editor of ‘Dispatches from the Arab Spring’.

Asked if it was really a government of national consensus, he said: “No. More like a government of desperation”.

Hamas had to back off on its demand for its person to run both religious affairs and prisoner affairs. This shows you that it is not based on consensus, he noted.

“Israel is going to do all it can to undermine even this consensus situation. It will do everything possible to break the unity, including sabotaging the elections slated to take place in six months,” Prashad predicted.

“And it is in Israel’s interest to have the two parts of Palestine in a kind of political congestion suffocating for lack of a pathway to liberation and peace,” he added.

Jennings told IPS it was clear from the beginning of the rift between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas that it would hopelessly divide Palestinian political ambitions and serve only the interests of Israel.

In fact, it has been a disaster for the Palestinian people.

“The question, now that a lacuna of seven years has separated the two factions and vast changes have taken place in the Middle East, is whether the April reconciliation agreement can possibly hold, and whether it is already too late to repair the damage.”

An even more daunting – and very doubtful – issue is whether the Obama Administration’s willingness to do business with the new unity government can withstand being crushed between the upper- and-lower-millstone coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his numerous sycophants in the U.S. Congress, he noted.

The irony of that situation is analogous to the time when the ancient Israelites were reduced to having their weapons blocked and their tools sharpened by their arch-enemies, the Philistines.

There is no agreement with Israel on political rights leading to statehood, no human rights guarantees for Palestinians, no control of its own borders, and no realistic chance for the massive economic programmes that are needed to empower Palestinian growth and development.

The caretaker technocrat government installed by President Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah with the concurrence of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza is a step in the right direction, Jennings noted.

However, it has very little time to perform before scheduled elections take place six months from now. Over the past few years humanitarian needs in the Palestinian territories have grown exponentially.

Caught between Israel’s destructive policies and remaining elements of Hamas rejectionists in Gaza, it is very doubtful that the new leadership will be able to withstand Israeli attempts to torpedo it and inspire the full support of the international community that is sorely and urgently needed, Jennings declared.

(END)