Israel aims to broadcast its interest in stability and humiliate the two main Palestinian factions.
Jerusalem, May 18 – Discord between rival Palestinian factions has grown so acrimonious that high-level Israeli officials have proposed that the two parties dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish State come together under Israeli auspices to reconcile, a Ministry of Regional Cooperation spokesman disclosed today.
Nu Daikvar, a ministry representative, told reporters that Israeli mediation provides numerous advantages to both parties, not least of which involves proximity. “Fatah-Hamas relations have deteriorated to the point where it’s too urgent to get together in some place like Doha,” Daikvar explained. “Enough is enough. It’s past time for these two factions to grow up and learn to coexist. Neither one is going to get everything it wants or demands. We have to find a workable compromise.”
The Islamist Hamas and the more secular Fatah have long vied for supremacy in the realm of Palestinian leadership. Public opinion surveys point to Hamas’s greater popularity, owing both to its perceived lack of corruption in contrast to Fatah cronyism, and to Hamas’s uncompromising stance on the elimination of Israel by any means possible as soon as possible, contrasted with Fatah’s long-term strategy of political, diplomatic, and demographic pressure to render Jewish sovereignty untenable – a strategy that also, in the popular Palestinian eye, involves policies and decisions that smack of collaboration with Israel.
Fatah controls the West Bank autonomous Palestinian areas, while Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, having seized power there from Fatah in 2007 amid a brief war. Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has declined to hold even parliamentary elections in the decades since, let alone a presidential contest. Repeated attempts by outside parties in the Arab world to mediate between the parties have produced hopeful or bombastic proclamations, and the occasional pretense of cooperation, but little lasting impact.
Analysts believe Israel’s move aims to accomplish two principal objectives: broadcast its interest in stability, and humiliate the two main Palestinian factions.
“It positions Israel as above the immature fray, and asserts an indispensable role for Israel in the region,” explained Len Bruce. “But more importantly, it mocks the Palestinian leadership and drives home the ever-relevant point that one of the chief factors in the long Arab failure to prevent, then dislodge, Israel from the map is the jockeying for power and influence among the various Arab entities participating in the ostensibly-unifying anti-Zionist project. Each of the participants, including those among the Arabs of Palestine, prioritized and still prioritize their personal advancement and power over any supposedly noble or broader interest.”
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