Will Abbas reconcile with Hamas over Dahlan?
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is under Egyptian pressure to achieve reconciliation with dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan, but it might push the president to agree on reconciliation talks with Hamas instead in Doha.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to resist Arab pressure to reconcile with dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan. Abbas has also been under pressure to back the Arab road map, which calls for internal reconciliation within Fatah between Abbas and Dahlan, followed by a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation and ultimately leading to a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement.
Abbas has said he is willing to resume reconciliation talks with Hamas that Qatar has been hosting since 2012. In July 2013, Egypt suspended the reconciliation talks it had held since June 2008 due to the tense relations between Hamas and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime, after Cairo accused Hamas of meddling in Egyptian affairs.
Tensions rose between Abbas and the Arab Quartet — which includes Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — against the backdrop of the reconciliation efforts with Dahlan following statements by Abbas and PA leaders like Ahmed Majdalani and Azzam al-Ahmad, who asked the Arab Quartet states not to interfere in internal Palestinian affairs on Sept. 4.
In response, some Egyptian and Emirati media outlets attacked Abbas, and he was labeled in a headline on Sept. 5 in Egyptian newspaper Youm7 as “deceitful and contradictory.” Emirati Al Khaleej newspaper demanded Sept. 10 that Abbas step down and accused him of "imposing himself as the guardian of the Palestinian people, meddling with their cause and compromising on their national rights.”
