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?
