In a move that surprised many in Washington, last Wednesday, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and its Islamist rival Hamas announced that they had reached an agreement to reconcile and end their seven-year rift. American commentators overwhelmingly approached the news from the angle of its impact on the already faltering US-sponsored peace talks. Unsurprisingly, Abbas's move drew furious reactions from American and Israeli officials.
What possibly could Abbas be thinking? According to some analysts, the Palestinian leader's motivation was to put pressure on the US and Israel in order to extract concessions in the negotiations. However, the Americans and the Israelis were hardly the first thing on Abbas's mind. Instead, his eye was on something much closer to home, inside Fatah. Namely, Abbas is concerned with heading off the challenge from former Gaza security chief Muhammad Dahlan. But since the Palestinian arena is subordinate to wider Arab politics, Abbas's maneuver also needs to be viewed against the backdrop of Arab dynamics and the efforts of Arab states to project power onto the Palestinian arena. The central Arab player in this sphere is Egypt, in alliance with Dahlan’s other patron, the United Arab Emirates, with Qatar the principal actor on the other side of the divide. Cairo, which has been squeezing Hamas, also seems unimpressed with Abbas and is looking for an alternative to the 79-year-old Palestinian president.
Against this backdrop, the Palestinian players and their respective Arab backers have been maneuvering for months, leading to the current convergence between Abbas and Hamas. For their part, Egypt and the UAE want to reintroduce Dahlan into Gaza and back into Fatah, and they're helping him build up his ability to reconstitute his influence. Please CLICK HERE to keep reading
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