On Hamas, Fatah and the Squandered Years: When ‘Unity’ Loses Its Meaning | Ramzy Baroud

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Ramzy Baroud -- World News Trust

July 5, 2013

When Hamas and Fatah representatives met in Gaza June 4, there was little media fanfare. In fact, neither party expected much attention to their "unity talks" aside from the occasional references to "national reconciliation," "building bridges" and the "obstacles" along the way.

And since then, there was yet more proof that the Gaza talks were another futile exercise to breathe unity between political factions that were never united to begin with, nor possess the minimal requirement of a shared political platform, let alone vision.

Ample analysis has been offered by way of anchoring the Hamas-Fatah split to a specific point in time. Some of these references point to the January 2006 parliamentary elections in which Hamas won the majority vote, to Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas’ decision to dissolve the last unity government on June 14, 2007, or to the bloody ousting of Fatah from Gaza after a brief, but bloody fight the following month.

None of this, however, can fairly explain the underpinning of that split. Palestinians in Gaza, in particular, remember a different narrative, one that goes back years before the failed talks, the civil war and even the Oslo accord itself.

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