Who better to achieve Palestinian reconciliation than Egypt?
Lately, Egypt has been trying to revive Palestinian reconciliation as part of its efforts to regain its sponsorship role in the region.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Egypt is trying to break the deadlock over the Fatah and Hamas reconciliation. Daoud Shihab, the spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, told Felesteen newspaper Nov. 22 that during a Nov. 14 meeting in Cairo with a senior Islamic Jihad delegation headed by the movement’s Secretary-General Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, Egypt expressed its readiness to host a Palestinian national comprehensive dialogue to discuss the possibility of achieving reconciliation based on the initiative put forward by Shalah Oct. 21. According to Shihab, Egypt has yet to set the date of the dialogue.
The Egyptian desire to revive Palestinian reconciliation raised important questions on the Palestinian street. Chief among these are the following: Why is Egypt insisting on its sponsorship of the reconciliation? Following the failure of all previous agreements, most recently the Beach Refugee Camp Agreement in April 2014, why is a new dialogue being considered between Fatah and Hamas? Does Egypt really have the key to solving the reconciliation obstacles?
It should be noted that Qatar previously tried to revive the reconciliation process by hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Oct. 28 and having him meet with the head of Hamas’ political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, and his deputy, Ismail Haniyeh, to start a new dialogue about reconciliation. However, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper Nov. 16 that this dialogue, which only lasted for one day, stopped due to Abbas’ insistence on certain conditions.
Abu Marzouk said, “There are four points that Abu Mazen [Abbas] wants to achieve through reconciliation: First, a national unity government that abides by the PLO, and this was not agreed upon by Hamas and Fatah at any step of the way and is, in fact, the essence of the problem. Second, Abbas refuses to convene the Palestinian Legislative Council and wants immediate legislative and presidential elections to be held. Third, he did not mention elections at the Palestinian National Council level, and this is contrary to what we agreed upon under the Beach Refugee Camp Agreement in April 2014. Fourth, Abbas did not mention the PLO’s Temporary Leadership Framework. Thus, all efforts to achieve reconciliation have stopped.”
