Abbas's misbegotten peace bid
PALESTINIAN Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been chalking up quite a few frequent flyer miles lately. On Sunday, Abbas met with Saudi King Abdullah in Jeddah. The following day he traveled to Egypt for meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The purpose of both trips was to secure Arab support for a new initiative aimed at ending the Middle East stalemate. There's only one problem: The negotiations Abbas is trying to jumpstart are not with Israel but with Hamas. Since last month, Abbas has been working overtime to engineer a Fatah and Hamas reconciliation.
Last week Abbas announced that he was prepared to meet with leaders of Hamas without any preconditions. His announcement, which abandons a policy by Fatah of refusing to talk to the group until it first gave up control of the Gaza Strip, suggests that Abbas has concluded that the future lies not in talks with Israel but with Hamas.
If talks go well, Abbas said, a unity government could be formed soon followed by early Palestinian elections. For the White House, which has sought to isolate Hamas internationally, and an Israeli government that wants the group to renounce violence and recognize the Jewish state, such moves are unwelcome. There is talk that Abbas could sit down with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal later this month, something that both Washington and Jerusalem will interpret as putting the final nail in the coffin of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal this year.
Since the dissolution of the Fatah-Hamas government last June, Abbas has come under enormous political pressure from home and abroad. There is little doubt that he is now acting from a position of weakness. He appears to have concluded that his own survival is linked to that of Hamas. The challenge for Washington and Jerusalem is to convince him he is wrong. Although he has experienced a small boost in popularity with his announcement last week, such a boost is likely to be temporary.
Politically expedient as it may be, Abbas should ask himself whether the Palestinian people are best served by "a national and comprehensive dialogue" with Hamas. On that front, the answer is no. While one could be forgiven for thinking Palestinian unity should be welcomed, a Fatah-Hamas national dialogue would have both negative short term and long term consequences for Palestinians and the peace process.
Having reconciled with Fatah, Hamas will see little need for a truce, temporary or otherwise, with Israel. The formation of a new unity government will embolden the group's hard-liners who, having weathered the storm of the past 12 months, will argue for a continuation of their confrontational approach toward the Israeli state. A unity government is also likely to face renewed sanctions by the United States and international community, further plunging the Palestinian people into poverty.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should use her visit to the region this week to convince Abbas of the danger of such a move. Together with Jerusalem, Washington should do all it can to bolster Abbas while making it clear that should he continue on the path he is headed down, the consequences will be grim for the Palestinian people. Getting Washington to pressure the Olmert government to make concessions may have been the Palestinian president's strategy all along. Regardless, the Bush administration should encourage Israel to work with Abbas now.
This week's decision by Israel to transfer withheld tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority so that it can pay the salaries of Palestinian civil servants is certainly a step in the right direction, but Israel must take additional moves to convince Abbas that the only real path forward is through negotiating with the Israelis and not Hamas. For starters, Israel could ease the checkpoint restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank. Jerusalem could also demonstrate its seriousness by halting construction on new settlements. If Abbas spurns these gestures and goes ahead with his plans for a new unity government with Hamas, then at least we will know once and for all that he is a man committed neither to peace nor the best interests of his people.
Sara Bjerg Moller is a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations.
