Differences between Fatah and Hamas on Palestinian reconciliation may see the Doha Declaration put on the back burner, writes Saleh Al-Naami Comments made by Ghazi Hamad, undersecretary at the Foreign Ministry of the Gaza government, during a gathering with friends after his return from Cairo reflected his disappointment at the apparent impossibility of ending internal Palestinian divisions any time soon. Hamad is one of the most enthusiastic Palestinian officials pressing for reconciliation and an advocate of compromise in order to achieve this goal. However, he feels that the Doha Declaration is not conducive to achieving real progress between Fatah and Hamas in a way that would allow the implementation of the Declaration, such as reviving and restructuring the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and forming a national unity government. "The text of the Doha Declaration is vague, which allows each side to interpret it according to its own interests," Hamad told Al-Ahram Weekly. "This complicates matters because of the prevalent atmosphere of distrust." Informed sources also told the Weekly that pressure from the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa, on the director of Hamas's political bureau Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had helped conclude the Doha Declaration without Abbas and Meshaal consulting the leaders of their respective groups. The Declaration was met with objections and reservations by other leaders in both groups, although the objections inside Hamas are louder. One prominent Hamas opponent is Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, a member of the group's political bureau, who is viewed as a long-standing opponent of Meshaal's and who has strongly criticised the latter for his positions on the issue of reconciliation. After a recent meeting of Hamas's political bureau in Cairo, a consensus was reached that endorsed the Doha Declaration, but with many preconditions. Sources said that these included Hamas not agreeing to the formation of a unity government unless Abbas first secures Israel's approval to hold elections in the West Bank, especially in occupied Jerusalem. This would guarantee that elections take place and would limit the term of the transitional government. Al-Zahhar said that the basis of the consensus inside Hamas on the Doha Declaration was that the group wants guarantees from non-Arab parties that Palestinian elections will be held according to a specific timeline. "We are concerned that the government that Abbas will form will have an extended term without a deadline," he explained. "We don't want a government similar to the one that late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat formed and that remained in power for more than a decade without any real oversight or supervision." The Hamas leader added that the group was insisting that the new cabinet be approved by the Palestinian parliament, a step which Abbas is sensitive about. The latter is concerned that if the cabinet is referred for approval by the parliament, this could be an opportunity for the parliament to grab oversight and legislative mandates. This could in turn mean that the parliament will have the power to review presidential decrees issued by Abbas over the past four years that were not referred to it and decide to revoke or annul them. However, the main problem facing the implementation of the Doha Declaration is its implications regarding the PLO. The Declaration states the need "to create a Palestinian National Council (PNC) simultaneously with presidential and legislative elections." This article is a retreat from the references to the PLO in the Cairo Agreement of March 2011, where there was talk about holding elections to choose the members of the PNC. While Hamas believes that PNC members should be chosen via elections in areas containing Palestinians from the Diaspora, Fatah argues that such elections are unrealistic since the various host countries would not allow them to take place. However, the main reason preventing agreement on a mechanism to form the PNC is that the latter will be responsible for outlining the general policies of the PLO, and there are fears that elections could significantly alter the balance of power within the PNC. Fatah does not want the PNC to be elected because it fears that the results would not be in its favour, given the discontent among Palestinian refugees towards the group. But discounting elections as a mechanism to choose the new PNC would mean that the political agenda of the PLO since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 would remain the same. The 1993 Accords limited Palestinian options in negotiations and stripped other options of legitimacy, especially the option of armed resistance against the Israeli occupation. Meanwhile, Abbas seems to be comfortable with the wording of the Cairo Agreement that is reiterated in the Doha Declaration, essentially forming a temporary leadership body for the PLO that includes the secretaries-general of Palestinian factions and independent Palestinian figures, along with members of the PLO's executive committee. Abbas is popular among these figures, and such a composition and type of representation would not reflect the balance of power on the larger Palestinian scene. Although the Cairo and Doha documents state that the new body will be a temporary one until a wholly new PNC is formed, it seems that a new Council will not see the light anytime soon. As a result, the supposedly temporary new body will remain the only one guaranteeing even the symbolic participation of the Palestinian factions in mapping out Palestinian policies and it will meet only irregularly and according to Abbas's wishes. Discussions in the Council are more like consultations, and they are not binding. Yet, even if Hamas and Fatah agree on the Doha Declaration, the chances of implementing it are slim because of the Israeli veto. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu repeated his familiar position regarding Palestinian reconciliation after the Doha Declaration by asking Abbas to choose between negotiations with Israel or reconciliation with Hamas. According to Israeli logic, anyone who reconciles themselves with Hamas cannot be a negotiating partner with Tel Aviv. It is clear that Israel is keen on keeping internal Palestinian divisions alive because this gives it extensive manoeuvrability in confronting the Palestinian people. When dealing with Hamas, which it categorises as a "terrorist group," Israel believes that it has the right to use military force even in a disproportionate manner. When dealing with Abbas, who insists on talks, it claims that it cannot close a deal because he only represents half the Palestinians. Israel and the US convinced many countries at recent UN General Assembly meetings to adopt exactly this position vis-�-vis Abbas. Israel has also demonstrated its ability to deter the Palestinian Authority (PA) from completing the path to reconciliation by combining economic sanctions, such as not transferring tax revenues that it collects on behalf of the PA's treasury in Ramallah, with personal penalties that include restricting the freedom of movement of senior PA officials, including Abbas. It goes without saying that in the wake of Israel's refusal, a reconciliation agreement cannot be implemented in the West Bank. Legislative and presidential elections cannot be held in the West Bank without the approval of Israel, for example, whose army is engaged in raiding cities, towns and villages there. At the same time, although the Quartet cautiously welcomed the Doha Declaration, it also restated the preconditions required of any Palestinian government. These include recognising Israel, a commitment to signed agreements with Tel Aviv, and the renunciation of terrorism �ê" a reference to armed Palestinian resistance against the occupation. Both the Cairo and Doha documents were based on the Egyptian reconciliation proposals that did not include the Quartet conditions, but this does not prevent the Quartet from taking punitive actions against any government that does not uphold these conditions, such as revising financial assistance to PA institutions. The Quartet's position has already caused a rift between Fatah and Hamas, since the former asserts that the national-unity government will uphold the Quartet's preconditions, while Hamas counters that the government will only commit itself to the Egyptian proposal. Disputes inside Hamas are not limited to diverging views on the Doha Declaration, but also about developments in the region, especially the current Syrian uprising. Although the group's leadership has been careful not to express any explicit position on events in Syria, Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Hanyeh spoke his mind last week by praising the "revolution of the Syrian people" during a Friday sermon at Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo. This was the most unequivocal expression of Hamas's support for the Syrian uprising thus far. However, Hamas sources abroad were quick to say that Hanyeh's statements were not an expression of the group's position. Some view this inconsistency on the Syrian uprising as a symptom of the row among the group's leadership, with intense internal Palestinian debate about the Doha Declaration implying that the agreement cannot be implemented because of its imprecise text, and regional and international interference compounded by mutual distrust and domestic factors.
