On 17 March the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) met in Gaza City and Ramallah and voted 83 to 3 in support of the National Unity government proposed by Hamas and Fatah. The three votes against included two Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) members of the PLC who opposed it on the grounds that the political programme of the new government is a retreat from the prisoners’ National Reconciliation Document, the publicly-declared basis on which a unity government was to be formed. Missing from the vote were the 41 members of the PLC who were being held in Israeli prisons, the majority detained without charge. BOB SHEPHERD reports.
Of the 25 ministers in the new government 11 are from Hamas, six from Fatah, four from smaller parties and four are independants. Two of the most important ministries, Foreign and Interior, have been filled by independents and the Finance Ministry by the US-educated Salam Fayyad, a member of the small pro-imperialist Third Way party. Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh continues as Prime Minister with a Fatah member as Deputy Prime Minister.
The agreement between Hamas and Fatah was an unexpected development as all previous attempts to form a unity government had broken down over Fatah’s condition for joining: that Hamas renounce violence (that is, resistance to occupation), recognise Israel’s right to exist and adhere to all previous international agreements signed by the PLO. It followed on deadly clashes between Hamas and Fatah forces in Gaza which had led Haniyeh to declare that ‘the US and Israel’s strategy was to prevent the formation of a national unity government and instigate a Palestinian civil war’.
Between 24 January and 6 February, when talks began in Mecca between the two sides, over 50 Palestinians were killed in the fighting which started when Fatah members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces in the north of Gaza attacked Hamas members of the Executive Force. On 25 January there was a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack on the house of the Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al Zahar in Gaza. The Hamas Interior Minister declared that Mohammad Dahlan was behind the attacks and that he was leading a ‘mutiny’ trend in Fatah that was acting in the interests of the US and Israel. A ceasefire agreed on 30 January almost immediately broke down. The next day, Bush authorised the immediate transfer of $86m to Abbas to boost his security forces. On 1 February, Hamas forces stopped a convoy of trucks from Egypt carrying arms for Abbas’s Presidential Guard; in the resulting fighting over 20 Palestinians were killed. The same day, Fatah forces attacked the Islamic University in Gaza City using mortars and RPGs, causing millions of dollars of damage. It was reported that they believed the Israeli soldier captured by the Palestinian resistance forces in June was being held there.
A second ceasefire was declared on 3 February, and talks sponsored by Saudi Arabia on a national unity government began in Mecca on 6 February. On 8 February Hamas and Fatah signed the Mecca Accord. The basis of the Accord was set out in a letter of entrustment presented by Abbas to Haniyeh asking him to form a new government: ‘to work in order to achieve its national goals as was approved by the Palestine National Council, the clauses of the Basic Law and the National Reconciliation Document…to respect international resolutions and the agreements signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)’.
Abbas and Fatah have been forced to retreat from their immediate aim to exclude Hamas from the Palestinian government by a combination of mass popular opposition to the growing civil war and the strength of Hamas’s military resistance. The letter of entrustment represented a major retreat by Fatah as it did not mention imperialism’s three demands as set down by the Quartet of the US, UN, EU and Russia.
In agreeing to form a unity government Hamas is hoping that the international isolation of the PA will be broken; for this to happen, though, they will be forced to give more political authority to Abbas and his pro-imperialist allies. These moves will risk weakening and undermining the anti-imperialist forces in the Palestinian government. The response of imperialism to the new government exposed divisions in the approach of the US and European states. Norway immediately recognised the government; Italy also declared its support and the new Palestinian Foreign Minister was invited to visit France and Belgium for talks. Russia also declared its support. Margaret Beckett, the British Foreign Minister, in welcoming the formation of the unity government bemoaned the fact that it had not accepted the Quartet’s conditions but indicated that Britain will deal with ministers who are not members of Hamas. A similar position was put forward by the US government but with no indication that it will end its economic blockade of the PA. Israel has declared that it will not have any dealings with the new government and will continue to withhold Palestinian tax revenues; it will though keep its contacts with Abbas.
One of the first decrees passed by Abbas after the formation of the new government was the appointment of Zionist and US stooge Mohammad Dahlan as his National Security Advisor. This was immediately opposed by Hamas, Salah Bardawil, its PLC spokesman declaring ‘Dahlan is a provocative personality and we have just escaped a critical internal situation, involving infighting and the killing of people. He was one of the most noticeable figures during the fighting…he is persona non grata in the Palestinian street’. This is the first open expression of what will be a continuing conflict within the unity government between the pro and anti- imperialist trends represented there.
FRFI 196 April / May 2007
