Cairo's sponsoring of extended talks between Palestinian factions aims to counter US plans for the region, writes Amira Howeidy As the prospects of a US-led war on Iraq draw closer, covert tension in the region is surfacing. And it is resonating loudly in Cairo where preparatory talks for a second round of negotiations with Palestinian factions, dedicated to "discussing" rather than "stopping" operations inside Israel's 1967 borders (the Green Line), have taken place. The talks also come under the broader rubric of Palestinian unity. According to Mohamed Sobeih, Palestine's representative at the Arab League, delegates from six Palestinian factions held bilateral negotiations with senior Egyptian officials ahead of "unity talks" scheduled in Cairo "soon". In November 2002 two delegations from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted secret negotiations in Cairo. The meeting ended with recommendations to resume negotiations after consulting with the leaderships of both movements. Leaks confirmed that the first talks focused on the cessation of Palestinian operations inside the Green Line though the official position of both Fatah and Hamas was that the talks were about Palestinian unity and the internal situation in the Occupied Territories in addition to -- and vis-à-vis -- the expected war on Iraq. Observers suggested that the secrecy shrouding the November talks and the manoeuvring in media statements were a result of the history of failure that has dogged Hamas-Fatah talks, something they are trying hard to avoid this time. Certainly, the sensitivity of the topics being discussed left no room for making public what had passed between the representatives behind closed doors. And just as significantly, the door that was closed was that of the Egyptian Intelligence chief, Omar Soliman, who attended and largely conducted the negotiations. The Fatah-Hamas dialogue, meanwhile, continued in Gaza. According to sources close to the negotiations Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, based in the Syrian capital Damascus, has secretly visited Cairo more than once over the past month for negotiations with senior Egyptian officials to pave the way for last week's talks. Meshaal conveyed Hamas's suggestion for a dialogue that includes all the Palestinian factions. Cairo took it up and invited Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, The Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP and DFLP) and the communist People's Party for bilateral talks last week. According to Sobeih, delegates from all these factions spoke with Egyptian officials this week and at the time Al-Ahram Weekly went to print talks were continuing with representatives from the People's Party. A Hamas delegation was also expected to arrive in Cairo yesterday. The significance of the talks, informed sources told the Weekly, lies in the fact that this is the first time that such senior Egyptian officials have opened a dialogue with Islamist groups such as Hamas and Jihad, orchestrators of the majority of operations against Israel. In the past communication with Hamas was via the State Security Investigations (SSI) department, under the Interior Ministry. The involvement of Soliman came as a surprise to Hamas which welcomed the Egyptian initiative. Cairo, Hamas sources said, respected the group's decisions and "did not attempt, not once, to pressure us to halt our operations". Following four-day talks earlier this week with Soliman the DFLP's Secretary General Nayef Hawatma also said that cessation of suicide operations had not been discussed. Such reports were confirmed by Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher who at a press conference on Monday revealed that "stopping the Intifada or the resistance is not [a] proposed [item on the table]". Cairo had been expected to pressure Hamas and Jihad to stop operations at least until the Israeli elections on 28 January. Hamas sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, argue that Egypt "feels the danger" of America's war on Iraq and its policy of regime change and "reform" in the region. "Cairo is very, very worried. It is our impression that it is taking the new US vision seriously and wants to prove that Egypt has a powerful role in the Arab-Israeli conflict," the source told the Weekly. It is also in the interest of the Palestinian factions to unify their forces and identify "common ground". "The objective of these talks are twofold," Meshaal told the Weekly in a telephone interview from Damascus, "establishing Palestinian unity and putting an end to internal chaos and disagreements which only serve the interests of the Zionists." "We want to develop a political vision on how to manage the resistance and the Intifada to make it more effective," he said. That may not be so easy, given the divisions that exist within Fatah itself. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu-Mazen), a vocal opponent of the Intifada, is likely to head Fatah's delegation in the coming unity talks, a fact many commentators see as a problem for any successful outcome. Says Meshaal: "We will negotiate with whoever Fatah delegates... in any negotiations our position is clear. We have two constants: Palestinian rights and continuing resistance." Abu-Mazen's participation in the coming talks might also be a tactic from Arafat himself to undermine the man the US and Israel both wish to see replace him, says Cairo-based Palestinian activist Abdel-Qader Yassin, who is close to the DFLP. An additional hurdle to any successful outcome is that, following a meeting with Soliman last month, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon refused to offer guarantees that his army would be bound by any truce negotiated with the Palestinians. But this is not stopping Egypt and the Palestinians from putting their weight behind unity talks which, if successful in forging a national front, will at least offer the opportunity for a breakthrough in a region that is holding its breath before the first missile lands in Baghdad.
