Hamas and other factions must act to stop Abbas destroying the Palestinian cause
Mahmoud Abbas in a meeting with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on 18 August 2020
Saleh Al-Naami writes in Middle East Monitor:
The positions of the Palestinian factions, including that of Hamas, do not live up to the seriousness of the situation following the decision by the Mahmoud Abbas-led Palestinian Authority to resume security cooperation with Israel. The PA announced this move at the same time that the factions were meeting in Cairo with representatives of the Fatah movement as part of the farcical “reconciliation efforts”.
Condemnation and rejection of this crime, without forming a comprehensive national strategy to confront its dangers, means that these factions, including Hamas, will bear the consequences of what Abbas has done. Before getting into the details of what must be done in response to Abbas’s miserable decision, though, it is of utmost importance to review how serious it is.
The decision represents a clear statement that Arab normalisation with Israel, which helps the occupation state to damage the Palestinian cause, now enjoys the support of Abbas and his authority. The evidence for this is that soon after announcing the resumption of security coordination, Abbas sent his ambassadors back to both the UAE and Bahrain.
Moreover, the resumption of security cooperation — which I doubt was ever really suspended — lends credibility to my belief that Abbas was using the reconciliation efforts to buy time until the outcome of the US presidential election became clear. In the event of a win for the Democratic candidate, he would turn his back on reconciliation. And that is exactly what he has done.