Describing the ongoing factional fighting in Gaza as “shameful”, Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti, one of the Palestinian cabinet's independent members, said the Hamas-Fatah national unity government was “formed specifically to prevent internal fighting, and to open the road of protecting democracy."
The same feeling of disappointment could be felt across the Middle East, where governments and people are shocked at the deadly wave of internal fighting between Hamas and Fatah that have claimed the lives of more than 40 people since Sunday and encouraged Israel to add to the unrest by launching a series of air strikes that claimed the lives of at least 11 Palestinians over the past two days.
Arab leaders appear to be in despair over how to stop the violence which threatens to bring down the unity government just two months after its creation.
Saudi Arabia, a regional heavyweight, has stayed silent about the factional fighting since it broke out six days ago, signaling its deep anger at Hamas and Fatah, who signed a power-sharing deal that paved the way for the formation of a unity government at a summit hosted by Riyadh in the holy city of Mecca last February.
"It is hard to see Saudis or anyone else expending political capital and sticking their neck out for the Palestinians while gunmen controlled by Hamas and Fatah turn Gaza into a homegrown killing field," according to an editorial on Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper.
Despite the Saudis’ reluctance to intervene, the Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Saudi Arabia is a member, issued a statement demanding the two rival factions to “adhere to the Mecca agreement, which laid down a solid base to overcome the current bottleneck in the Palestinian arena."
Other Arab leaders had no other option but to call for an immediate end to the fighting. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose country brokered three truce agreements between Fatah and Hamas over the past five days, spoke by phone with President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, telling him: "Palestinian blood is sacred." Jordan's King Abdullah II also spoke to Abbas, telling him that “violence must stop for the sake of the Palestinian people, and for the sake of Palestine.”
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – all key U.S. allies – have been trying to persuade the U.S. and Israel to accept an Arab peace plan as a starting ground for the resumption of the Arab-Israeli peace process. The initiative, launched in 2002 but revived last March, offers Israel full peace with all Arab nations if it withdraws from territories captured in the 1967 Middle East War and if an independent Palestinian state is formed. Many analysts say the renewed clashes in Gaza stall efforts by Arab states to bring Israel on board.
Nobody knows for sure what went wrong in Gaza, which according to Sateh Nourredine, managing editor of Lebanon's As-Safir daily, "is out of control."
"No one knows where it will lead. They've tried mediation by Egypt, the Arab League and the Mecca agreement. They've had direct talks and a national unity government. Then the situation explodes in this catastrophic way," he told The Associated Press. "There is no political logic to what's happening."
Some analysts say the fighting indicate that the power-sharing deal didn’t solve major disputes between Hamas and Fatah. "The Mecca agreement didn't get into the deep-rooted divisions between Hamas and Fatah," said Saudi writer Khalid al-Dakhil.
One of the major points of differences between Fatah and Hamas was the issue of who would be appointed to the key position of interior minister, who by default controls all Palestinian security forces; something many analysts say was behind the eruption of the ongoing clashes following last week’s deployment of 3,000 police in Gaza from forces loyal to the President Abbas' Fatah party amid opposition by Hamas, a move that led to the resignation of interior minister Hani al-Qawasmi, an independent, who said that he wasn’t informed about the deployment.
Those who signed the Mecca Declaration knew it faced opposition from some members of both parties, said Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi. Hamas’ military wing didn’t want to stop its resistance against Israel, while many Fatah members wanted “to topple the agreement because they don't want a partner or the national unity government," Atwan said.
Meanwhile, ordinary people in the Arab world – strong supporters of the Palestinian cause – are stunned by TV images showing Gaza as a war zone, with masked gunmen in the virtually empty streets and people helping the wounded -- either from the internal fighting or Israeli attacks.
Many believe that the chaos only benefits Israel.
"America, Israel and the whole West want to see us divided," 47-year-old Kamal Abu-Zeid, an Egyptian, told The Associated Press.
Others, including many Palestinians, blame the international community, Israel and Arab leaders for the current turmoil as they all failed to lift an aid embargo imposed by the U.S., EU and the UN after Hamas took office last year. Israel too refuses to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in tax, which it collects on behalf of the Palestinians.
In fact, one of the key goals of forming a national unity government was to end the economic siege, but the sanctions have remained.
"The international community and Arab countries shoulder part of the responsibility for the current events due to their attitudes toward the national unity government," said Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau. "It's illogical that the Arabs stand idle watching the Palestinian arena while it's on the verge of explosion under the siege...this is a constant pressure that has led to a real explosion.”
It seems that a number of reasons were behind the latest round of fighting in Gaza. Whether it’s the economic siege, Hamas and Fatah’s power struggle, or the international community’s reluctance to save the unity government, the ultimate losers are Gaza’s 1.5 million residents, who have been through years of Israeli occupation, months of artillery and air strikes, and a year-old aid embargo.
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