China brokered Hamas-Fatah deal

According to Saudi Gazette, Palestinian factions including rivals Hamas and Fatah have signed an agreement on ending division and strengthening Palestinian unity in Beijing.

The announcement followed reconciliation talks hosted by China involving 14 Palestinian factions starting Sunday, according to China’s Foreign Ministry, which comes as Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza and as Beijing has sought to present itself as a potential peace broker in the conflict.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the agreement was “dedicated to the great reconciliation and unity of all 14 factions.”

“The core outcome is that the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) is the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinian people,” Wang said, adding that “an agreement has been reached on post-Gaza war governance and the establishment of a provisional national reconciliation government.”

It was unclear from Wang’s comments what role Hamas, which is not part of the PLO, would play in such an arrangement, or what the immediate impact of any deal would be. The talks were held as the future governance of Palestinian territories remains in question following Israel’s repeated vow to eradicate Hamas in response to the group’s October 07 terrorist attack on its territory.

The PLO is a coalition of parties that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1993, and formed a new government in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Fatah dominates both the PLO and the PA, the interim Palestinian government that was established in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after the 1993 agreement known as the Oslo Accords was signed. Hamas does not recognize Israel.

There is a long history of bitter enmity between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah. The two sides have tried – and failed – multiple times to reach an agreement to unite the two separate Palestinian territories under one governance structure, with a 2017 agreement quickly folding in violence.

The PA held administrative control over Gaza until 2007, after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied-territories and was expelled from the strip. Since then, Hamas has ruled Gaza and the PA governs parts of the West Bank.

At a press conference Tuesday in Beijing, Hamas delegation representative Mousa Abu Marzook said they had reached an agreement to complete a “course of reconciliation,” while also using the platform in Beijing to defend the group’s October 07 attack on Israel.

“We’re at a historic junction. Our people are rising up in their efforts to struggle,” Abu Marzook said, according to a translation provided by China’s Foreign Ministry, adding that the October 07 operation had “changed a lot, both in the international and regional landscape.”

Beijing has not explicitly condemned Hamas for its October 07 attack on Israel.

Tuesday’s agreement follows an earlier round of talks between Hamas and Fatah hosted by Beijing in April.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, China – which has looked to bolster its influence and ties in the Middle East in recent years – has presented itself as a leading voice of the countries across the Global South decrying Israel’s war in the enclave and calling for Palestinian statehood.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May called for an international peace conference during meetings with leaders from Arab nations and has also dispatched a special envoy to the Middle East to meet with diplomats and officials.

Observers have questioned the extent of Beijing’s geopolitical clout in a region where the US has long been a dominant power, but China surprised many last March when it played a role in brokering a rapprochement between longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Those efforts have been broadly seen as part of Beijing’s push to position itself as a geopolitical heavyweight with a different vision for the world from the United States.

Tuesday’s agreement was also inked as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the US for a highly anticipated visit in which he will meet top US officials and address Congress.

Israel launched its military operations in Gaza following Hamas’ October 07 attack that killed more than 1,100 people and saw roughly 250 others kidnapped. Around 39,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict, which has triggered a mass humanitarian crisis and widespread destruction.

Hamas and Fatah had signed a reconciliation agreement in Cairo in October 2017 under pressure from the Arab states, led by Egypt. Under the deal, a new unity government was supposed to take administrative control of Gaza two months later, ending a decade of rivalry that began when Hamas violently evicted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007.

But the deal’s lofty aspirations quickly collapsed. When Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visited Gaza in March 2018, he was the target of an assassination attempt when a bomb detonated near his convoy. Hamdallah’s Fatah party immediately blamed Hamas for the attack.

Hamas and Fatah sign agreement in Beijing ‘ending’ their division, China says

According to Saudi Gazette, Palestinian factions including rivals Hamas and Fatah have signed an agreement on ending division and strengthening Palestinian unity in Beijing.

The announcement followed reconciliation talks hosted by China involving 14 Palestinian factions starting Sunday, according to China’s Foreign Ministry, which comes as Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza and as Beijing has sought to present itself as a potential peace broker in the conflict.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the agreement was “dedicated to the great reconciliation and unity of all 14 factions.”

“The core outcome is that the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) is the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinian people,” Wang said, adding that “an agreement has been reached on post-Gaza war governance and the establishment of a provisional national reconciliation government.”

It was unclear from Wang’s comments what role Hamas, which is not part of the PLO, would play in such an arrangement, or what the immediate impact of any deal would be. The talks were held as the future governance of Palestinian territories remains in question following Israel’s repeated vow to eradicate Hamas in response to the group’s October 07 terrorist attack on its territory.

The PLO is a coalition of parties that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1993, and formed a new government in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Fatah dominates both the PLO and the PA, the interim Palestinian government that was established in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after the 1993 agreement known as the Oslo Accords was signed. Hamas does not recognize Israel.

There is a long history of bitter enmity between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah. The two sides have tried – and failed – multiple times to reach an agreement to unite the two separate Palestinian territories under one governance structure, with a 2017 agreement quickly folding in violence.

The PA held administrative control over Gaza until 2007, after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied-territories and was expelled from the strip. Since then, Hamas has ruled Gaza and the PA governs parts of the West Bank.

At a press conference Tuesday in Beijing, Hamas delegation representative Mousa Abu Marzook said they had reached an agreement to complete a “course of reconciliation,” while also using the platform in Beijing to defend the group’s October 07 attack on Israel.

“We’re at a historic junction. Our people are rising up in their efforts to struggle,” Abu Marzook said, according to a translation provided by China’s Foreign Ministry, adding that the October 07 operation had “changed a lot, both in the international and regional landscape.”

Beijing has not explicitly condemned Hamas for its October 07 attack on Israel.

Tuesday’s agreement follows an earlier round of talks between Hamas and Fatah hosted by Beijing in April.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, China – which has looked to bolster its influence and ties in the Middle East in recent years – has presented itself as a leading voice of the countries across the Global South decrying Israel’s war in the enclave and calling for Palestinian statehood.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May called for an international peace conference during meetings with leaders from Arab nations and has also dispatched a special envoy to the Middle East to meet with diplomats and officials.

Observers have questioned the extent of Beijing’s geopolitical clout in a region where the US has long been a dominant power, but China surprised many last March when it played a role in brokering a rapprochement between longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Those efforts have been broadly seen as part of Beijing’s push to position itself as a geopolitical heavyweight with a different vision for the world from the United States.

Tuesday’s agreement was also inked as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the US for a highly anticipated visit in which he will meet top US officials and address Congress.

Israel launched its military operations in Gaza following Hamas’ October 07 attack that killed more than 1,100 people and saw roughly 250 others kidnapped. Around 39,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict, which has triggered a mass humanitarian crisis and widespread destruction.

Hamas and Fatah had signed a reconciliation agreement in Cairo in October 2017 under pressure from the Arab states, led by Egypt. Under the deal, a new unity government was supposed to take administrative control of Gaza two months later, ending a decade of rivalry that began when Hamas violently evicted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007.

But the deal’s lofty aspirations quickly collapsed. When Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visited Gaza in March 2018, he was the target of an assassination attempt when a bomb detonated near his convoy. Hamdallah’s Fatah party immediately blamed Hamas for the attack.

Fatah-Hamas rift deepens

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s visit on Sunday to Ramallah termed a sign of improved relations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

However, this visit has dampened hope of resolving the dispute between the PA and its archrival, Hamas. In fact, the meeting between Gantz and PA President Mahmoud Abbas has exacerbated tensions between the two Palestinian factions.

Hamas was one of the first Palestinian groups to strongly condemn the visit by the “Zionist minister of war” to Ramallah. A number of Hamas officials accused Abbas of “stabbing the Palestinians in the back” and “betraying the blood of the Palestinian martyrs.”

A Palestinian official dismissed the charges as “idiotic” and accused Hamas of working to serve the agenda of “foreign powers” in the region, an apparent reference to Iran and Qatar. The serious accusations mean the split between the PA-ruled West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is likely to continue, at least as long as Abbas is in power.

The rivalry between Abbas’s Fatah faction and Hamas reached its peak in 2007 when the Islamist movement violently seized control of the Gaza Strip after removing the PA from power.

Abbas has never forgiven Hamas for the humiliation. Worse, he is convinced that Hamas was behind a plot to assassinate him in the Gaza Strip.

Over the past 14 years, several attempts by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to achieve reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas have failed.

Last year, Fatah and Hamas seemed close to burying the hatchet when they announced they had reached an agreement, under the auspices of Egypt, to hold long-overdue elections for the PA presidency and parliament, as well as the PLO’s legislative body, the Palestinian National Council.

But Abbas’s decision in April to call off the elections again put Fatah and Hamas on a collision course. Since Abbas’s announcement, tensions between the two groups have been intensifying.

After the 11-day Israel-Hamas war in May, strains between the two sides further escalated, especially in light of the mass pro-Hamas demonstrations that swept many parts of the West Bank.

Several Palestinians who participated in the demonstrations were arrested or beaten by Palestinian security officers in the West Bank. Additionally, Fatah and Hamas have been unable to reach agreement on who would be responsible for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the war.

The honeymoon between Fatah and Hamas was credited to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former US president Donald Trump. Last year, Fatah and Hamas even reached agreement to work together to topple Trump’s plan for Middle East peace, also known as the “Deal of the Century,” and Netanyahu’s “schemes” against the Palestinians.

Netanyahu and Trump managed, where some Arab leaders had failed, to unite the Palestinian rival parties.

Things have since changed, however, and neither Netanyahu nor Trump is in power. The absence of the two men from the political scene and the change of government in Jerusalem and Washington paved the way for the restoration of relations between the PA and Israel and the US.

Abbas has reached the conclusion that he has more to gain from dealing with the new governments in Israel and the US than from making peace with Hamas. The Biden administration has resumed financial aid to the Palestinians and is talking about the need to strengthen the PA, and this is precisely what Abbas wants to hear.

Similarly, the new Israeli government has already changed its attitude toward Abbas and the PA. At the behest of the Biden administration, the government has announced a series of gestures to strengthen the Palestinian economy and improve the living conditions of the Palestinians.

The Israeli measures could help Abbas and the PA leadership in the short term. But in the long term, the gestures are not going to change the hearts and minds of most Palestinians toward Israel. Nor will these gestures assist Abbas in regaining credibility among his own constituents.

Gantz traveled to Ramallah with one mission, to strengthen the PA and its leaders. The visit could also be seen as a bear hug for the 85-year-old Abbas. It is no wonder that the PA leadership refused to publish any photos of the meeting. Abbas is well aware that a photo op with the “Zionist minister of war” would cause great damage by making him appear as a “subcontractor” for the Israeli security establishment.

Abbas has long been facing sharp criticism because of his support for security coordination between the PA and Israeli security forces in the West Bank. About six years ago, Abbas drew strong condemnation from many Palestinians when he was quoted as telling a group of Israelis he considered security coordination to be “sacred.”

Abbas’s political enemies, including Hamas, are now exploiting the Gantz-Abbas meeting to incite against the PA leadership. Their main argument is that Abbas has chosen to align himself with the Israelis and Americans instead of working to reunite the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and end his conflict with Hamas.

Last week, a document leaked to Palestinian media revealed that Abbas had made it clear he will not allow Hamas to join any Palestinian unity government unless the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip accepts all international resolutions pertaining to the Israeli-Arab conflict.

This means Hamas must recognize Israel’s right to exist and accept the two-state solution as a precondition for joining any Palestinian government – a demand that has been vehemently and repeatedly rejected by Hamas officials. The leaked document set off a war of words between Fatah and Hamas, with each accusing the other of foiling efforts to achieve national unity.

For now, Abbas and the PA leadership appear satisfied with the policies and measures of the Biden administration and the Israeli government. A senior PA official on Tuesday praised the recent agreements with Israel, especially family reunifications and financial matters, as a significant achievement.

Earlier, Palestinian officials said they were satisfied with the new approach of the Biden administration, namely to strengthen the PA.

The three men running the PA – Abbas, Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh and General Intelligence chief Majed Faraj – are all known for their hostility toward Hamas. They have decided the Palestinians are better off dealing with the Biden administration and the government of Naftali Bennett than joining forces with Hamas.