Only one Palestinian cause

Strangulating Hamas in Gaza might force it to just bomb Israelis. That old dynamic must be avoided.

from the June 18, 2007 edition

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A 72-hour civil war last week left the nascent state of Palestine cut in two. A secular regime now rules in the West Bank; a Muslim one in Gaza. Eventually the two warring sides will realize they can never create a country for all Palestinians on their own. But when?

Palestinians everywhere still deserve a unified, independent state. The Middle East, too, deserves to see one created simply to remove the Palestinian diaspora as a reason for strife and terrorism.

Just how Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza someday reconcile will depend much on the actions of various nations, from Iran to the US, that have fingers in this newly divided pie.

The last outside force to reconcile Hamas and Fatah was Saudi Arabia, in March. It is itself ruled by a largely secular regime that made accommodation with powerful Islamists. Saudi money, too, goes far in the region, and lately to counter Iran's noxious influence.

For a few months, the Saudis were able to patch together a Palestinian government torn over the issue of who controls the security forces. Fatah holds the presidency while Hamas ruled parliament after last year's elections. But when President Mahmoud Abbas recently put an anti-Hamas associate as head of all security forces, Hamas decided to remove Fatah from its stronghold in Gaza. Its quick victory, against a Fatah force supplied with American weapons, will resonate in the Middle East for some time.

But it's a Pyrrhic victory. A religious party bent on destroying Israel can't long ignore the Palestinians' acceptance of the necessity for a two-state solution with Israel. And the new ad hoc regime in Gaza can't survive in the tiny, isolated strip without Israel and Egypt allowing aid and trade across the borders to feed about 1.5 million residents.

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