Why did UN Secretary General's appeal go unheeded?

In early April the new UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, whose candidature had been supported by the United States, among others, had urged the international community to be patient and give the new Palestinian unity government time to co-ordinate positions and hopefully recognise Israel and renounce violence.

Ban, who had just returned from an 11-day Middle East trip, quoted then Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr - an independent Cabinet member - as having assured him that his government would continue to work to meet the expectations of the international community.

Ban was realistic enough not to take such remarks as a given, so much so that he stated that from his meetings with others it may take time for the Palestinians to co-ordinate their positions. His plea was simple.

While the international community should encourage the Palestinians to change their positions and perform well in meeting its expectations, 'we' would also hope to be a little bit patient on this matter.

While the Palestinian divisions continued to hog the headlines, a report by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs was given little publicity.

It stated that the security fence that Israel is building will effectively separate mainly Arab-populated East Jerusalem from the West Bank; this will restrict access to workplaces, health, education (services) and even to places of worship. On the other hand, the Israeli authorities insisted that the fence, a mix of wire fencing and concrete walls, helps stop Palestinian suicide bombers from reaching cities inside Israel.

One cannot also dismiss lightly the fact that in 2004 the World Court had ruled the construction of the fence as illegal - a ruling the Israelis had chosen to ignore for their own security reasons.

Another fence under construction, around a settlement block near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, is expected to isolate a Palestinian cultural area there and "sever Bethlehem from Jerusalem" - always according to the UN report.

If we want to be honest we cannot but acknowledge that the prospect of two separate Palestinian entities will only strengthen Israel's strategy of creating facts on the ground that by design or even by default will end up deepening the cantonisation of off Palestine into separate and divided entities unable to form a viable and independent state.

I say so because a Gaza Strip sealed off by the Israelis and in which Palestinians live virtually like prisoners, and ruled by a radicalised, angry and frustrated people, cannot be in the best long-term interest of Israel.

After all it was The New York Times itself which recently commented editorially by posing the following question: "Is it really possible to expect that more punishment from the Israelis and the Americans, this time for not voting the way we wanted them to, would lead the Palestinians to abandon Hamas?'

Professor Guido de Marco and I might have different political backgrounds but he will surely agree with me that when most Palestinians supported the PLO, Israeli leaders sought to cultivate Hamas to challenge and undermine the PLO's authority.

Anyone's vision of peace must be based on equality and not on one party dominating the other.

It would be an insult to one's intelligence to argue that simply if huge amounts of aid are pledged internationally to Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip is isolated then everybody - outside the Gaza Strip at least - can live happily ever after.

What the world needs now is tough-minded realism and not naïve wishful thinking.

Over the years Israel has been pursuing tactics to weaken the power of the peace camp in Palestine led by Abbas. That indirectly led to Hamas gaining the clout that won it such popular support in the not too distant elections in Palestine.

The fear that what happened in Gaza could happen in the West Bank is a real fear while on the other hand one cannot avoid asking whether what happened in Gaza could be reversed. It might be a remote possibility that what happened in Gaza could take place in the West Bank, but on the other hand Fatah does not seem to have the political momentum to reverse the situation in Gaza.

Palestinians turned to Hamas because, although Abbas is now in his third year as Prsident, at no time before has anyone tried to empower him. All Israeli steps until now were really meant to mock him, and to show him up as a leader unable to solve Palestinian grievances.

If the international community wants to help Abbas they need to help the Palestinian people. And this can only really happen if there is a serious commitment to end the occupation.

At the time of writing, a leading American expert on Palestinian politics, Nathan Brown, predicted that Hamas and Fatah are likely to reconcile eventually. First of all because Hamas will not simply go away but, more important than that, because in his opinion it is unlikely in the extreme that some kind of peace arrangement can be worked out between Israel and Fatah.

He even showed doubts about the extent to which Mahmoud Abbas really controls the West Bank. If this is the case it is even less clear how he can ever reassert his control over Gaza so long as Hamas is there.

In the medium term he anticipated that Fatah will realise that they cannot negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians, that they are unlikely to get what they want from Israel and so in the end, after considerable time, they will probably go back to something that looks like the Mecca agreement.

The problem is that an awful lot can happen in the meantime. And this might not necessarily be good news!

We have three entities which all need to help themselves before any progress can be achieved:

• Israel, which deserves a stronger government;

• Fatah which needs to reform itself and cleanse itself from the elements that cost it the election; and

• Hamas which needs to adopt a more rational attitude.

Let us all wake up to the fact that while it is disturbing that one party (Hamas) is still committed to annihilating another (Israel), there is still a good chance that the Palestinian people will not necessarily interpret the crisis in Gaza as a Hamas failure, but could blame Israel, the US and some of their allies, chief among them Fatah themselves.

Even if hypothetically Abbas reaches an agreement with Israel, there is still no guarantee that he will have enough clout to implement such an accord on his own, while he represents only part of the Palestinian public and there is still some controversy about his legitimacy.

I have nothing against renewing the diplomatic dialogue. But excessive hope should not be attached to it. Let everybody from now on be judged by their actions on the ground. We all need new policies that must reflect reality.

While hoping that the US Secretary of State will make headway in her endeavours to get the Israelis and Palestinians to talk about the key issues that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state, I would like to refer to the recommendations of the recent (August 2) study by the highly reputable International Crisis Group entitled 'After Gaza', which made the following points with which I cannot agree more:

• Fatah and Hamas must cease hostile action against each other, begin to reverse steps that are entrenching separation between Gaza and the West Bank and negotiate a new power sharing arrangement;

• While some in the international community have viewed positively the Hamas takeover of Gaza and Abbas's appointment of a new government, they are mistaken since security and a credible peace process depend on minimal intra-Palestinian consensus.

• A new Fatah-Hamas power sharing deal is a prerequisite for sustainable peace. If and when it happens, the rest of the world must do what it should have done before: accept it.

• A diplomatic agreement reached by one faction to outmanoeuvre its rivals is an illusion. No Palestinian state can be built without Gaza. Palestinians cannot end the occupation if they are at war with themselves.

leo.brincat@gov.mt

Mr Brincat is Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs and IT.