Proving that there’s no peace partner with whom to negotiate a two-state solution, Palestinians remain at war between Hamas’ Gaza Strip and Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO’s] West Bank. When Palestinians Prime Ministre Rami Hamdallah was nearly killed by a Hamas planted Improvised Explosive Device [IED] March 13 while crossing the Erez Border Crossing into Gaza, it signaled the Islamist group Hamas was still at war with 82-year-old Fatah-PLO Leader Mahmoud Abbas Abbas made clear today he blamed Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh for the attempted assassination attempt. Gaza rejects any peace deal with Israel, no longer seeking unifcation with the Ramallah-based PLO. Since seizing Gaza from the PLO June 14, 2007, Hamas has shown no interest in sharing power with Abbas. Gaza’s residents overwhelmingly back Hamas, wanting no part of the West Bank.
Abbas has plenty of ire lately, from his disdain of U.S. President Donald Trump and disgust with militant Hamas leader Yehwa Sinwar taking over from Insmail Haniyeh Feb. 13, 2017. PLO’s Security Chief Majid Faraj was also injured in the attempted assassination attempt, proving Sinwar wants no part of Abbas. Abbas seems consumed with slamming Trump and U.S. Israeli Amb. David Friedman, calling him today the “son of a dog.” Abbas thinks he’ll convince enough anti-Semites at the U.N. to form a Palestinian state without direct talks with Israel. Without any capacity to reconcile Hamas in Gaza Strip with the West Bank, Abbas speaks only for one half the Palestinian people. When you consider Abbas’ unending attacks on the Trump, he’s lost millions in funding to the U.N.’s Palestinian mission, making prospects for a two-state solution next to impossible.
Humiliated that he has no unified Palestinian people, Abbas can only plead with the European Union to recognize Ramallah as its own state. EU officials aren’t duped by Abbas that he has any control over Hamas in Gaza. Yet Abbas continues his defiance over the U.S. brokering any peace deal because Trump announced Dec. 6, 2017 he’s moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Abbas already knows the U.S. does business in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It’s no accident, despite all of Abbas’ protests, the Israeli Parliament [Knesset] has met in Jerusalem since 1949. What irks Abbas more than anything is that the PLO couldn’t win a war with Israel, even when it had the backing of the Arab World, especially in the 1967 Six Day War and 1973 Yom Kippur War, both designed to destroy Israel. Nearly 70 years since Israel’s founding May 14, 1948, Abbas has watched Israel prosper.
In the Gaza Strip, where the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returned the territory to Palestinians in 2005, there’s been only mass poverty and financial collapses. Billions of donors’ cash has passed through the Gaza Strip over the last 13 years, mostly going into rockets and military tunnel-building for Palestinians’ fantasy final assault on Israel. Hamas has had Gaza’s isolated residents believing pernicious propaganda that they’ll one day conquer Israel. Polls of Gaza residents confirm that most residents don’t want peace with Israel, believing they’ll eventually conquer the Holy Land. Abbas, without any influence beyond the West Bank, rejects U.S. peace overtures, citing bogus concerns about U.S. bias. When generations of U.S.-Israel-Palestinians tried to make peace, nothing has changed: U.S. officials have always considered Israel in closest ally in the Middle East.
Whether the U.S. considers Israel a close friend of not, it doesn’t stop U.S. leaders from finding an equitable settlement for both parties, including the issue of Jerusalem. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was an attempt to get Palestinians back to the peace table. Abbas took it as an act of war. “Then they said, “Wait for our plan What shall we wait war?’ We will not,” said Abbas. Many said, ‘Why don’t you go to Washington?’ They want us to go to Washington to sign. We will not accept that, and we will not let it pass,” Abbas, insisted. Abbas knows he’s at war with Hamas and can’t negotiate anything for Gaza’s militant rulers. “As president of the Palestinian people, I’ve decided to take all national, legal and financial measures,” said Abbas, knowing he’s in no position to negotiate anything for Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Abbas shows he has no clue over whom he rules.
Without reconciling with Hamas, Abbas only controls less than half of the Palestinian population. There can be no two-state solution with Israel, with or without direct talks, without Abbas making peace with Hamas. Since Hamas wants to control all the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, Abbas has become a titular leader only. No one in the U.N., Arab League, Gulf Cooperation Council or any other political body can reconcile the PLO’s split with Hamas. While there’s great sympathy for the Palestinian plight, peace is in Abbas’s hands, not anyone else. Rejecting the U.S. as Mideast peace broker guarantees that there won’t be peace for Abbas in Gaza, certainly not with Israel. Whether or not Trump decides to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem has no bearing on a future Mideast peace, certainly not to heal the ongoing split between Hamas and the PLO.
