At midnight Friday, according to Hamas’ interpretation of the Palestinian constitution, the tenure of Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority comes to an end.
The confrontation in the Gaza Strip has granted Israel the opportunity to decide whether Abbas will lose his legitimacy before some of his nation, or will secure continued Fatah rule in the West Bank.
The decision to adopt the Egyptian-French-American compromise may bring an end to the fighting in the Strip and create the conditions for the resumption of the peace process. A decision to reject it may, instead of causing the collapse of Hamas rule in Gaza, bring about the crash of Abbas’ rule in the West Bank. And that will, by extension, destroy the road map.
The proposal is based mostly on the 2005 agreement on the crossings that Israel signed. It established that the Rafah crossing would be operated by the Palestinian Authority and a third party – in this case the European Union – would supervise its operation.
In addition it was agreed that the crossings would be operated on a continuous basis and would be described as international border crossings. Israel would allow the crossing of goods and people between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
A Hamas victory in the January 2006 election resulted in the shelving of the document governing the crossings and the Hamas takeover in the Strip, in June 2007, effectively killed it.
Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak would be glad to revive the agreement without offering Hamas an official role. But he also understands something that Israel finds difficult to comprehend – that Hamas is not going anywhere. The alternative to including it in the governance of the Gaza Strip does not translate into a new “security reality” but a new chaotic situation.
Source: By Akiva Eldar Haaretz
Filed under: Analysis , Analysis, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, Hezbollah, IAF, IDF, Israel, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal, War
