It would be easy to dismiss Fatah’s crackdown on Hamas members in the West Bank as yet more factional infighting. Since the collapse of the Palestinian government and the ousting of Fatah from the Gaza Strip, the two sides have been in constant conflict. It seems that every time Hamas needs to score political points it cracks down on Fatah, and every time Fatah needs to show it is tough on terror it arrests Hamas members. However, while the tactics are tired and the motivations blindingly obvious, Fatah’s persecution of Hamas comes as the United States is gearing up for a massive attempt to push the peace process forward. The nature of Barack Obama’s plan to make real progress towards peace and Palestinian statehood makes Fatah’s security efforts far more significant.
First, it is important to note why Fatah feels it necessary to attack Hamas. Under the road map to peace, there are two key preconditions for peace: Israel must halt settlement construction and withdraw from the Occupied Territories, and the Palestinians must provide security necessary to end the attacks on Israel. Israel never ceased its expansion into the West Bank and maintains roadblocks and soldiers there, citing among a litany of other excuses the inadequacy of the Palestinian security forces. But in the end, Israel’s restrictions on military hardware sent to the West Bank, its effective control over the West Bank through control over border crossings and airspace as well as the Israeli forces on the ground have made the continued underperformance of both the Palestinian Authority and security forces almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So while the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is yet again making a show that he is willing and able to crack down on Hamas, this time it comes in conjunction with Mr Obama’s strategic vision for a renewal of peace talks. His apparent goal is for both the Israelis and Palestinians to live up to their commitments under the road map. What makes Mr Obama different from his predecessors in the White House is his rhetoric. In the past, the US has been accused of leaning too lightly on Israel and too heavily on the Palestinians. This cannot be said of Mr Obama.
His call for a halt to settlement construction has been met with a great degree of hand-wringing and defiance from Israel’s new right-wing government. Its resistance is understandable; if it were to accede to the US’s demands it would alienate its support base. In the past, the US would ameliorate its demands to accommodate political realities in Israel. Mr Obama appears to realise that accommodating Israeli intransigence has been the biggest stumbling block in the peace process, and it must be overcome. As Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator put it, the Palestinians “hope that the United States will shift its policy from what’s possible to what’s needed.” And it seems that they are finally getting what’s needed.
But the opportunity Mr Obama has given the Palestinians could just as easily be lost. By answering Palestinian complaints of unconditional US support for Israel to explain their fecklessness, Palestinian factions may have nobody to blame but themselves if they fail to meet their commitments. The US, and probably the Arab world, is preparing to expend vast amounts of political capital for the sake of the Palestinian cause. If the Palestinians fail to live up to their commitments, then not only will they damage the political credibility of their backers, they may not get another such opportunity for peace for many more years.
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