Israel Should Applaud Fatah-Hamas Deal

In one word: Bravo! The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward for the Palestinians—and for us.


Therefore: Bravo!


Two bravos, but such a difference.

The Israeli debate about Arab unity goes back a long way. It already started in the early ’50s, when the idea of pan-Arab unity raised its head. Gamal Abd-al-Nasser hoisted this banner in Egypt, and the pan-Arab Ba’ath movement became a force in several countries (long before it degenerated into local Mafias in Iraq and Syria).

Nahum Goldman, president of the World Zionist Organization, argued that pan-Arab unity was good for Israel. He believed that peace was necessary for the existence of Israel and that it would take all the Arab countries together to have the courage to make it.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s prime minister, thought that peace was bad for Israel, at least until Zionism had achieved all its (publicly undefined) goals. In a state of war, unity among Arabs was a danger that had to be prevented at all costs.


He won.

Now we have the same problem all over again.




When Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian elections, surprising everybody, including itself, the Israeli government declared that it would have no dealings with any Palestinian government in which Hamas was represented. It ordered—there is no other word—the U.S. and EU governments to follow suit. Thus the Palestinian unity government was brought down.

The next step was an Israeli-American effort to install a strongman of their choosing as dictator of the Gaza Strip, the bulwark of Hamas. The chosen hero was Muhammad Dahlan, a local chieftain. It was not a very good choice—the Israeli security chief recently disclosed that Dahlan had collapsed sobbing into his arms. After a short battle, Hamas took direct control of the Gaza Strip.



The Palestinian people, with all the odds against them, can hardly afford such a disaster. The split has generated intense mutual hatred between comrades who spent time in Israeli prison together. Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority—with some justification—of cooperating with the Israeli government against them, urging the Israelis and the Egyptians to tighten the brutal blockade against the Gaza Strip, even preventing a deal for the release of the Israeli prisoner of war, Gilad Shalit, in order to block the release of Hamas activists and their return to the West Bank. Many Hamas activists suffer in Palestinian prisons, and the lot of Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip is no more joyous.


Benjamin Netanyahu is jubilant already. The ink was not yet dry on the preliminary agreement initialed in Cairo when Netanyahu made a solemn speech on TV, something like an address to the nation after an historic event.

“You have to choose between us and Hamas,” he told the Palestinian Authority. That would not be too difficult—one the one side a brutal occupation regime, on the other Palestinian brothers with a different ideology.


The whole thing is a huge relief for Netanyahu. He has been invited by the new Republican masters to address the U.S. Congress next month, and he had nothing to say. Nor had he anything to offer the UN, which is about to recognize the state of Palestine this coming September. Now he has: peace is impossible, all Palestinians are terrorists who want to throw us into the sea. Ergo: no peace, no negotiations, no nothing.




What made both sides more flexible? Both have lost their patrons—Fatah its Egyptian protector, Hosni Mubarak, and Hamas its Syrian protector, Bashar al-Assad, who cannot be relied upon anymore. That has brought both sides to face reality: Palestinians stand alone, so they had better unite.

For peace-oriented Israelis, it will be a great relief to deal with a united Palestinian people and with a united Palestinian territory. Israel can do a lot to help this along: open at long last an extraterritorial free passage between the West Bank and Gaza; put an end to the stupid and cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip (which has become even more idiotic with the elimination of the Egyptian collaborator); let the Gazans open their port, airport, and borders. Israel must accept the fact that religious elements are now a part of the political scene all over the Arab world. They will become institutionalized and, probably, far more “moderate.” That is part of the new reality in the Arab world.

The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel, as well as by the European nations and the United States. They should get ready to recognize the state of Palestine within the 1967 borders. They should encourage the holding of free and democratic Palestinian elections and accept their results, whatever they may be.

The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine, too. Bravo!

Author: Uri Avnery
