Hamas and Fatah power deal 'key to Mid-East peace'

What, oh what, will the USraelis make of this?

Israel has recently put forward some proposals for negotiations with the Palestinians, proposals that I have been happy to applaud as a serious basis for future negotiations.

However, the USraelis are only willing to have these negotiations with Fatah and have made it very clear that they expect Hamas - the party who won the most recent Palestinian elections - to have nothing to do with the process.

Now the International Crisis Group independent think-tank have stepped forward and said that there has to be a new power-sharing arrangement between Fatah and Hamas for there to be any chance of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The Arab states and other third parties, it suggested, should mediate between Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip two months ago. Robert Malley, a former White House adviser who directs the ICG's Middle East programme, said that if a new unity government emerged, "the rest of the world must do what it should have done before: accept it".

I have always argued that what was done regarding the election of Hamas amounted to a disgraceful abdication of the electoral process. The International Crisis Group think tank are stating the obvious here. How can Fatah represent the Palestinian people - in, potentially, the most important negotiations in that people's history - when they are not the elected representatives of the Palestinian people?

The Israelis have put forward a series of proposals which I think are credible and workable. However, no future Palestinians state will be possible without the input of the party which the Palestinians say best represent their interests.

But the ICG proposals were greeted with Palestinian scepticism and Israeli rejection. Ghassan Khatib, a West Bank political scientist and former independent minister, said: "The two sides are not yet ripe for partnership. Hamas seems interested in complete control or domination. Fatah is unable to live with such arrangements... I don't see this being reversed in the foreseeable future."

Mark Regev, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Everyone understands we're moving finally in the right direction. The resumption of national unity on the Palestinian side would immediately stop the process from moving."

It seems a very odd set of affairs that Israel and Palestine "moving finally in the right direction" can only be achieved by cutting the will of the Palestinian people out of the equation.

This "democracy" which Bush is so keen to export to the Middle East simply looks odder and odder with each passing day.

First, Ibrahim al-Jaafari - the elected Prime Minister of Iraq - is forced to step down, and then Hamas, the elected leaders of Palestine, are starved out of office.

And all in the name of "democracy". Bush's version of democracy would work a lot better if he could simply find a way to cut the people out of the process.

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Tags: International Crisis Group, Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Fatah, Olmert, Abbas, Bush