Today's announcement of Hamas/Fatah reconciliation is a favourable wind that blows, even if uncertainties abound as to how peace between the factions would be entrenched and work to achieve Palestinian statehood and peace with Israel.
As AlJazeera's Marwan Bishara so pertinently suggested, it makes sense for the two main Palestinian factions to see reconciliation as strengthening the Palestinian cause at a time of sweeping political change spreading through the Arab street.
The position of the United States as of today is at best, non-committal. Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu has already declared in no uncertain terms that Fatah would have to make a stark choice.. Peace with Israel OR peace with Hamas. Never both.
Whatever the uncertainties, including the practicalities of a workable Hamas/Fatah coalition under an Israeli occupation, one thing remains inexorable...
...There was never any real hope of realisation of Palestinian aspirations and true peace with Israel, without the reconciliation of the two main Palestinian factions.
Should reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah be established and endure, history will deem, and with good reason, the Arab 'spring', not the United States nor the Quartet, as the catalyst for the achieving of Palestinian statehood and true peace with the state of Israel.
Wednesday 27 April 2011
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