Palestinian President Abu Mazen’s mandate comes to an end on January 9th and in view of the upcoming presidential elections, he intends to call for an early general election to be held both in the West Bank and Gaza. The object is to recover a little credibility and legitimisation, especially with the new American administration and the next Israeli government by trying to regain control over Gaza, which is Hamas’ stronghold. The actual division and the lack of dialogue between Fatah (in Ramallah) and Hamas (in Gaza) now risks leading to far more serious consequences. Especially because, seeing that Hamas did not appear at the negotiating table, Egypt decided to cancel Cairo’s mediating meetings and openly support Abu Mazen’s policies. This change in Egyptian strategy also resulted in the arrest on December 15th of Jamal Abdussalam, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, accused of fund raising for Hamas and recruiting young Egyptians to fight alongside Hamas in Gaza.

However, last November 26th, during a meeting of Arab League Foreign Ministers, the Palestinian issue almost blocked the debate. The reason for disagreement between Syria and Egypt was the fact that Syria hosted an international conference on the right of refugees to return home. This was an issue Abu Mazen had dropped in negotiations with Israel, in the hope he would thereby obtain a peace agreement from Israel and above all regain control over Gaza. Syria does not accept being accused of supporting Hamas, and came back opposing Egypt’s interference in internal affairs in the Palestinian Territories, where Egypt in fact sponsored a motion to have Abu Mazen acknowledged as the only legitimate representative and his political movement Fatah as the only real political party representing Palestinians.

This general overview of relations between Fatah, Hamas and Arab countries in the region moves parallel to strategies of non-decision making and total inactivity. According to some Arab analysts, this is because they are awaiting new initiatives by the new American President Barack Hussein Obama. Arab inertia does not surprise analyst Dawud al Sharayyan, who wrote in the daily newspaper al Hayat that “The League has also maintained a neutral position even on the Algerian crisis as well as the one in Mauritania and insists instead on worrying about developments in Iraq.” All in all the Arab leadership seems incapable of worrying about its own regional interests and appears excessively subservient to Washington’s wishes. This obvious lack of clarity in the Arab League’s overall goals, with everyone focusing on their own interests, has for the moment resulted in dozens of meetings and summits, without any progress at all being made. On the other hand, Hamas aims at increasing its political power, gathering the hungry masses in Gaza and trying in every possible way to oppose the Palestinian president who is accused of plotting a military invasion of Gaza together with Israel.

Obviously Hamas does not mention that the real victim of the current political situation are the Palestinian people of Gaza, whatever the plans for the future may be, seeing that Hamas has had a chance to rule and has failed above all in creating new alliances with militants belonging to other Palestinian political parties. Fatah and Hamas have shown their basic immaturity in attempting to create a national Palestinian agenda capable of dialogue while respecting diversity. Hence the Palestinian tragedy perfectly reflects the current division between the “Brother countries” of the Arab League, which according to the Libyan leader Gheddafi remains united only “because they all meet in the same room.”

Translated by Francesca Simmons