PRESSURE FROM WITHIN:

Hamas and Fatah try to ease tensions after clashes (BEN LYNFIELD, 5/12/06, The Scotsman)

IMPRISONED leaders of Hamas and Fatah have drafted a joint political platform they hope will reduce tensions between the two Palestinian movements that flirted with civil war this week. [...]

The platform, if embraced by the Hamas cabinet, could be viewed as a step towards recognition of Israel. It was signed by intifada uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi of Fatah and Abdul-Khalek Natshe of Hamas, both prisoners in Israel's Hadarim prison.

It calls for establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and "the right of return" of Palestinian refugees. It says political steps should be based on "Arab legitimacy", an apparent reference to an Arab League peace plan from 2002 that offers recognition of Israel in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied during the 1967 Middle East war.

Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, has so far refused to adopt the Arab plan despite the urging of president Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Fatah leader, and international isolation that has prompted a severe economic crisis. Israel, its eye on annexing parts of the occupied territories, dismissed the plan when it was issued.

They obviously won't ever get the right of return or the '67 borders, anymore than the Zionists got Judea and Samaria, but those are just details.

MORE:
Israel’s Road To ‘Convergence’
Began With Rabin (Jonathan Cook, 12 May, 2006, Countercurrents.org)

With his coalition partners on board, Israel’s prime minister Ehud Olmert is plotting his next move: a partial withdrawal from the West Bank over the next few years which he and his government will declare as the end of the occupation and therefore also any legitimate grounds for Palestinian grievance.

From hereon in, Israel will portray itself as the benevolent provider of a Palestinian state -- on whatever is left after most of Israel’s West Bank colonies have been saved and the Palestinian land on which they stand annexed to Israel. If the Palestinians reject this deal -- an offer, we will doubtless be told, every bit as “generous” as the last one -- then, according to the new government’s guidelines, they will be shunned by Israel and presumably also by the international community.

Even given the normal wretched standards of Israeli double-dealing in the “peace process”, this is a bleak moment to be a Palestinian politician.

Bingo!

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 12, 2006 9:50 AM