Weekly Update - October 6, 2006

Focus on: Rice in the Region; Fitna in Palestine

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the Middle East this week, just in time to see the breakdown of Palestinian talks to set up a unity government, and to witness the eruption of fighting between Hamas and Fatah militias that is approaching the level of fitna, or civil war.

But were the two events - Rice's visit and the escalating internecine violence in Palestine - simply contemporaneous, or is there a deeper causal relationship between them?  In other words: Were Rice's meetings in the region with America's Arab allies part of an American move to put an end to the idea of a Fatah-Hamas compromise government, and to replace this strategy with one designed to drive Hamas from power?

Several indications point to the likelihood that the Bush team has given a thumbs-down to the PA unity government idea:

  • Egypt , a key American ally, has apparently disengaged from the effort to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange, while laying the blame on Hamas for undermining a deal. 
  • US-backed PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the unity talks were over , while threatening to disband the Hamas government and call fresh elections - an idea endorsed by Egypt.  (Hamas, not to bow to an Abbas ultimatum, staged a mass rally , and warned that new elections meant civil war.)
  • According to a New York Times report, the US and the Quartet will be pumping millions of dollars into an effort to expand the fighting force controlled by Abbas.
  • Rice, herself, indicated that the US was insisting that any PA government meet the three conditions outlined by the Quartet: Recognition of Israel, honoring of signed Israeli-Palestinian agreements and the abandonment of violence.  Rice's statements this week left little room for vague compromise language that might allow the US to work with a Fatah-Hamas government.
  • Rice's efforts on Israel-Palestine ostensibly were limited to seeking out new arrangements on cross-border traffic at Gaza transit points - part of an effort to boost the tragically ailing Palestinian economy.  But would an American Secretary of State come all that way just to talk about new X-ray equipment for the Karni border crossing?

Nonetheless, the idea of negotiations between Israel and a Hamas-Fatah government does have support - both in Israel and internationally.  This week in the NY Times, the International Crisis Group issued an ad, signed by an array of international dignitaries, calling for support of a PA unity government, accompanied by an end to the political and financial boycott of the PA. 

In Israel, too, several columnists have been pressing the argument that Palestinian unity is in Israel's interest.  Haaretz's Danny Rubinstein stressed that the alternative to such unity is chaos in Palestine along the lines of Afghanistan and Iraq, in which al-Qaida would flourish. Gidon Samet argues that the road to peace, illuminated by the Saudi Initiative, is clear, but that Ehud Olmert is sabotaging a Palestinian unity government out of domestic political considerations. And Amira Hass went even further, suggesting that Palestine's fitna is part of Israel's grand design, and that Mahmoud Abbas is little more than an Israeli stooge. 

On the ground, the violence continues in all directions.  Rockets continued to hit Sderot , Israel continued to hit at militants in Gaza while generating "collateral damage", and Hamas and Fatah continued to attack each other.  Meanwhile, Hamas is apparently moving along with the creation of a full-fledged military force , receiving equipment via tunnels from Sinai and training for combat with Israel.  And Israeli Chief of Staff Dan Halutz threatened deeper Israeli incursions into Gaza as part of Israel's Sisyphean effort to put an end to Palestinian cross-border fire.