Fatah & Hamas Unity Deal Thoughts

A friend pointed me to a report this morning which I already had read but will now post on it. The report states that Hamas will refuse the unity agreement with FATAH over “the right to resist.” Now, upon first read of the article you may form one opinion. But perhaps we should read between the lines here. As we must remember back in August 2009, immediately after the long awaited, much over due, manipulated FATAH conference as well. First today’s report regarding Hamas:

Reports from The Associated Press said Hamas leadership in Syria, and several other factions with leaders in exile there, rejected the Egyptian proposal for unity with its rival Fatah party in a Thursday report. Members of Fatah signed the agreement Wednesday, putting the onus on Hamas to sign and finalize the unity deal. Eight factions, unnamed but for Hamas in the AP report, issued a joint statement calling for the revision of the Egyptian plan to include the right of Palestinians to resist the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.source

Now let’s remember this from August 2009 after the FATAH conference:

Renewing its charter for the first time in two decades, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement reiterated on Sunday, August 9, the Palestinian right to resist the Israeli occupation, angering Tel Aviv.

"Fatah stresses its commitment to the pursuit of a comprehensive peace but reiterates the Palestinian people's right to resistance to occupation in all its forms in line with international law," reads the new charter cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"… we will not drop any options and we believe resistance in all its forms is a legitimate right of occupied peoples in confronting their occupiers." source

so here’s my initial off the cuff, not long thought out reaction, subject to change should I have more time to think about it politically and strategically that is ;o) But, my first inclination is that obviously, the position of the “right to resist” technically exists in both FATAH and HAMAS charters, as stated above in both articles.

Having said that, why would this now be a stumbling block? Could it be that the Egyptian proposals exclude the right to resist? If so then FATAH would need to change its charter as well as Hamas. And that would mean another FATAH conference. And I have not seen where FATAH have done this as their last conference was in August which retained the Palestinian right to resist. Additionally there are members and factions within FATAH that would never drop this right, nor would allow Abbas to give that right away. So it could be to destabilise and create some inner turmoil within FATAH factions who will then be informing Abbas that the right to resist cannot be traded away in Egypt or anywhere else without a vote.

So what else could it be then? Well, it could be that Hamas wants to ensure FATAH don’t drop this right in future. It could be that Hamas is forcing Abbas to reiterate what was decided at the conference in August 2009, in order to ensure that the right to resist is NOT off the table should any unity deal take place with Hamas and FATAH. Hamas would know that on the heels of the Abbas/Goldstone nightmare, that Abbas could never get away with dropping the right to resist at this time, even if he wanted to. so this places FATAH in a position of having to re-iterate it's position on the "right to resist" and thus could be paving the way for some unity deal perhaps. This is what I would tend to go with for now. I believe that Hamas is forcing Abbas and FATAH to re-state, in no uncertain terms that it remains true to its own August 2009 Charter which includes the Right To Resist, this move may be the ground laying for a possible unity deal, once that right is reiterated by FATAH and not for trade. Time will tell, we don’t have all the facts so we can only guess right now.