Khalid Amayreh

The reconciliation agreement signed in Gaza last month between the mainstream PLO faction, Fatah, and the Islamic Liberation group, Hamas, is reeling under intense pressure from Israel and her guardian-ally, the United States.

Israel repeatedly threatened to adopt "draconian measures" against the Palestinian Authority (PA) in case the latter dared implement the agreement with Hamas on the ground.

The punitive measures, dubbed blackmailing tactics by PA officials, include halting the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinians as well as a series of other restrictions and harassments.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying on Friday that the PA would have to choose between Hamas and the peace process.

But most Palestinians seem quite eager to see reconciliation between the two largest political movements in the Occupied Territories prevail even at the expense of a manifestly futile peace process that only saw Israel triple settlement expansion in the West Bank, effectively killing any remaining prospects for the establishment of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state worthy of the name.

The PA leadership, however, is trying hard to reconcile the irreconcilable. On the one hand, the PA can't appear as renouncing national reconciliation without which the Palestinian national cause could suffer further damage as Israel uses the rift between the two Palestinian factions as a sort of a "red herring" to evade paying the price for peace.

Indeed, Israeli leaders repeatedly argued that the Jewish state could not make peace with the Palestinians as long as the Palestinian house remained divided against itself.

But when Fatah and Hamas reached the reconciliation agreement, Israel was visibly furious as Israeli officials reiterated long-standing but spurious arguments about resistance and terror as well as Hamas’s refusal to recognize Israel.

On the other hand, the PA leadership in Ramallah can't go too far in alienating Israel and the U.S. Indeed, the PA is a non-sovereign entity that depends for its very survival on politically-driven aid coming from the U.S., EU and some oil-rich Arab countries that are more or less at America's beck and call.

Moreover, the PA has an umbilical security coordination agreement with Israel that effectively puts Palestinian security forces in the West Bank entirely in the service of Israeli security interests.

Several Israeli political leaders, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have made it abundantly clear that the PA would lose its very raison de'tre if it failed to carry out its "security functions" in collaboration with Israel. And the enemy, at least from the Israeli view point, is Hamas first, Hamas second and Hamas tenth.

Security agencies not enthusiastic about reconciliation with Hamas:
It is widely believed that the security agencies that are at least nominally answerable to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are not really enthusiastic about the reconciliation agreement with Hamas.

The Israeli TV, Channel-10, reported Saturday night, 17 May, that a high-ranking PA leader telephoned his Israeli counterparts recently to tell them that his men were not committed to implementing the reconciliation agreement.

And while it is hard to ascertain the reliability of the report, there are certain signs indicating its veracity.

According to reliable sources in the West Bank, PA security agencies have summoned 400 pro-Hamas activists for interrogation, ostensibly in connection to their participation in rallies in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

An Islamist official intimated to this writer that both Israel and the PA were worried and apprehensive about the "strong resumption of Hamas's street activities" which he said could "destroy what the PA, in cooperation of Israel, built since 2007, an allusion to the harsh security crackdown on Hamas's activism in the West Bank.

Nayef Rajoub, an Islamic MP from Dura, accused the PA of not being serious enough about the cause of national reconciliation.

"Those truly committed to national reconciliation don't attack peaceful protesters and arrest activists who have done nothing wrong."

The popular Legislative Council member wondered if the PA security forces were really answerable to the political leadership in Ramallah or to "non-Palestinian entities" hostile to the Palestinians.

To conclude, the PA will have to take a final and decisive decision, as to either succumb to Israeli pressure and disengage from the reconciliation process with Hamas, or defy Israel and the U.S. and opt for a lasting national reconciliation that would extricate the Palestinian people-and their enduring national cause- from the mirage of a disingenuous "peace process" that has made real peace, one based on justice and international law, more distant and more unlikely than ever.

Khalid Amayreh is a senior political analyst living in Occupied Palestine