The Feb. 20 event held at the PLO offices in Ramallah was supposed to produce a warming of relations between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the various PLO groups led by Fatah.

At the podium was Dr. Abdel Aziz Dweik, the former head of the Palestine Legislative Council, who was elected after the decisive 2006 victory of the Islamists. Next to him was Dr. Hanan Ashrawi member of the PLO’s executive Committee responsible for culture and communications. And next to her was Azzam Al Ahmad member of Fatah’s central committee and its point man in the reconciliation talks.

Instead of warming relations, the meeting exploded. The Youtube video that shows part of the verbal exchange begins with Dweik angry at something Abbas said; he gets up and decides to leave the meeting, calling on others to follow suit. A seated Azzam Al Ahmad begins a tirade of attacks, telling the elder legislator that he is running away from responsibility; and he ends his assault by accusing the former speaker of being opposed to any reconciliation, and that before Hamas was created, he (Dweik) was at times coordinating his activities with none other than former Israeli defense minister Yitzak Rabin.

The video, which has received nearly five thousand views, has poisoned the atmosphere at a time when it appeared that all elements of a reconciliation deal were coming together in a synchronized way.