Palestinian split rattles region

President Mahmoud Abbas named a new Palestinian cabinet Sunday and banned Hamas militias.

By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 18, 2007 edition

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JERUSALEM - If there is one issue that tends to unite the diverse and often divisive actors across the Arab world, it's the Palestinian plight.

But now, with the dramatic turn of events in the past week that has left the Islamic militant group Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip, Arab support for that cause has become more complicated than ever.

Hamas's victory – first by the vote and then by force – has Arab governments face to face with the possibility that they, too, may find themselves unable to control Muslim militant movements that stand opposed to secular nationalism or pro-Western policies. In Lebanon Sunday, militants there fired two Katyusha rockets into northern Israel, raising concerns that attacks on Israel in support for Hamas could trigger a regional flare-up.

Indeed, the creation of a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist ministate in Gaza will have reverberations throughout the region that are just now being felt.

In the past, most Arab and Muslim countries could express full support for the drive for an independent Palestinian state and an end to Israeli occupation. Now, they may find themselves forced to make the difficult choice: support Hamas or Fatah's President Mahmoud Abbas.

At an emergency meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo over the weekend, the league issued a statement trying to stay on good terms with both: expressing support for Mr. Abbas, and also for the Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament In a sense, says Tariq Masarweh, a Jordanian analyst, many Arab governments want to appear to stand in support of both sides of the Palestinian divide.

But, he argues, they should think twice about trying to do so.

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