Arab Spring: Fatah And Hamas Reportedly Reach Deal For Interim Govt, Elections In Year – OpEd

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By Philip Weiss

Hamas and Fatah have worked out a reconciliation agreement, Reuters and Al Jazeera are reporting–to form an interim government, with elections a year off, a deal brokered by Egypt. Elliott Abrams is on it like a duck on a junebug, pronouncing, at the Council on Foreign Relations, that this shows there can be no Palestinian partner for peace because Fatah will break bread with Islamists. And you wonder who fomented that split, back in 2007?

Thus the ineluctable historical forces of democratization in the Arab world bear down on Israel, too, the Arab spring would enfold Israel and Palestine, too, and the American forces that blocked such a path historically with one rationale after another– our air craft carrier against the Soviet threat, our bulwark against radical Islam, our only democratic ally– they grow desperate.

Panicked, Abrams writes, “this move by President Abbas vastly complicates U.S. efforts in the region and the Obama Administration’s current negotiations with Prime Minister Netanyahu.” What U.S. efforts in the region? What negotiations with Prime Minister Netanyahu?

Mondoweiss

Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective. Mondoweiss is maintained by Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz. Weiss lives in New York state and Horowitz lives in New York City.

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