Arab states try to undermine Fatah-Hamas reconciliation

Four Arab states reject Palestinian reconciliation and have put pressure on Fatah to backtrack on its pledges, The New Khalij news website revealed on Monday.

Citing informed sources, the site said that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are supporting Egyptian and Jordanian efforts to undermine the understandings between the rival Fatah and Hamas movements agreed in Istanbul. According to the sources, who spoke to Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, the Palestinian Authority’s slowdown in implementing the agreed measures was a result of this pressure.

Two weeks ago, the factions reached an understanding on accelerating the implementation of the recommendations of the conference of the secretaries-general of the Palestinian groups held in Beirut and Ramallah early last month. The factions agreed to announce a national vision for PA, Fatah and PLO President Mahmoud Abbas about unity among the Palestinians and taking practical steps on the ground before the start of October.

This has not happened. Instead, there has just been meeting after meeting between Fatah and Hamas.

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The sources also pointed out that there is pressure put on the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli occupation authorities. They noted that the Fatah delegation which visited Cairo last week – after the Istanbul understandings – were told that the Egyptians “are not happy with the way the understandings were announced in Turkey”.

Fatah responded by telling the Egyptians that the meetings and agreements were in the Palestine Consulate in Istanbul “without Turkish patronage.”

This did not persuade the Egyptians, who object to the holding of elections on the grounds that reconciliation without Egypt at the helm means that Cairo’s previous efforts have been wasted. Moreover, the regime in Cairo claims that the lack of international and US support for Palestinian the elections makes it an “uncalculated jump by Abbas.”