Big news: Hamas and Fatah have agreed to form a new interim government as part of a process of "reconciliation" and a "unity deal". Yes, not only is Hamas going to join Fatah in a unity government, that government will be lead by, who else, Abbas!
When I read that this morning I though "Hamas leaders have gone totally insane!". Think about it:
Who is Abbas? He is exactly *nobody*. He is not the "elected President of the Palestinian authority" simply because his term is over and his band of thugs never allowed any other elections to take place. Until this deal with Hamas was made his legitimacy was exactly *zero*.
What is Fatah? It's the utterly discredited and unmasked (thanks Wikileaks!) local combined franchise of the Shin Bet and the CIA. Hamas might as well sign a "reconciliation" deal with the Shin Bet and join a "unity" cabinet under the leadership of Yuval Diskin (or Yoram Cohen)!
What about the timing?
The timing could not be worse. Not only are there all the signs that a new, huge, Freedom Flotilla will attempt to break the Gaza siege this summer, but the new Egyptian Foreign Minister, Nabil al-Arabi, has even told Al-Jazeera that Egypt is making preparations to permanently open the Gaza border!
So at a time when Abbas and his band of traitors are totally discredited and despised by all, at a time when Hamas' stance in Gaza was about to be vindicated, the Hamas leadership finds nothing better to do than give the local Shabak/CIA franchise manager a new legitimacy!
Sadly, Hamas as a record of brilliant tactics followed by total strategic incompetence (just remember how it totally failed to exploit the bringing down of the Wall between Gaza and Egypt). But this latest decision goes beyond mere incompetence - it smacks of outright treason.
All of which is made even worse by the reaction rather crazy reactions in the rest of the world. Israel and the USA are opposing it, I don't know if they do that because they are really stupid or because really really smart, while Iran and Hezbollah approve of it - probably because criticizing the entire Palestinian leadership is impossible for them. It's a crazy world!
Whatever may be the case, and since I am not trying to be popular with anybody, I will clearly say that this is a disaster for all the Palestinian people. Against Israel nothing of any value has ever been obtained by compromise and/or negotiations - only by resolve and active resistance. Sadly, in the entire Middle-East only Hezbollah has really understood this and acted accordingly.
I never had much hope for Hamas as a movement which, after all, was initially created by the Shin Bet to be a counterweight to Fatah, but now I can only conclude that until a Hezbollah-like resistance organization crystallizes in reaction to the constant compromises and betrayals of the Palestinian leaders (Hezbollah was created as a reaction against the compromises and betrayals of Amal leaders) - little real progress will be achieved in Palestine.
The Saker
