Hamas-Fatah pact, tactic or strategy

Qudsna, Ahmad Kazemzadeh (expert in ME affairs):

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Gaza-based Hamas have agreed a reconciliation pact that provides for general election within five weeks that would lead to presidential and legislative election. The agreement once effective would require the Hamas and its rival Fatah movements to cede their powers to a national unity government.

Analysts enquire whether the reconciliation pact was a tactical move or rather it is a genuine strategy. The answer may rest in an analysis of the reasons behind the two sides’ push for coming together. The failure of the latest round of talks with Israel would be then a major reason behind the Fatah’s decision.

The bell tolled for the failure of the talks when the US Secretary of State, John Kerry adopted a pro-Israeli tone in the latest annual AIPAC meeting, showing a green light to the Zionist regime to turn its back to its commitments towards the Palestinian Authority, prompting the Authority to take retaliatory measures.

The PA first announced its decision to accede to 13 international conventions, including the Geneva Fourth Convention that would help it to sue the Zionist regime of Israel over its expansionist policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. The PA also threatened to dismantle itself however the central council of the Fatah movement thumbed down the idea.

The PA move to join with Hamas may be viewed as another level of pressure in the row picked by the Authority. The signing of the pact would then be a tactical move in the sense that the Authority would swiftly revise its position concerning the Hamas pact once it feels some revision in Israeli position concerning the freedom of Palestinian captives or settlement building across the Palestinian territories.

Hamas too may have sought the pact to be a way out of its diplomatic straits that came about by its false calculations over the political base of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region. Hamas found its own base shaky after the US betrayed its Egyptian Brotherhood friends. Hamas’ traditional position further eroded after it followed the Muslim Brotherhood in supporting the Syrian opposition, triggering the speculation that the Palestinian movement has distanced itself from the regional axis of resistance. Hamas then may have tried to fix its face among the Palestinian masses by reconciling with the Fatah.

Hamas and Fatah may have decided to use the reconciliation pact as a tactic for their own interests. The fate of the reconciliation pact would then depend on the future of Israel talks. The pact may survive only when the two sides as well as other Palestinian groups join their forces around a common national goal.