*’Palestinian Reconciliation: Plus Ça Change …’*, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, headed by Louise Arbour, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, recommends a number of steps the international community, Europe and the U.S., Israel and both Fatah and Hamas should undertake to translate the accord into reality.

*”The international community should allow, to the maximum extent permitted by law, donor-funded projects to use construction materials that enter Gaza via the tunnels under its border with Egypt, and encourage Israel to increase the movement of materials into and exports out of Gaza and Egypt to enhance the functioning of the Rafah crossing,”* the report recommends.

The Crisis Group says: *”So long as the threat of financial sanctions against a new government looms, forward movement will be difficult. Europe and the U.S. need to realise that enduring Palestinian division will make it impossible to hold elections and thus will perpetuate the current crisis of legitimacy; heighten risks of violence; and limit (Mahmoud) Abbas’s diplomatic room for manoeuvre. Accordingly, they should judge the government by its deeds, particularly whether it enforces a mutual ceasefire with Israel and defers to the PLO chairman’s negotiating agenda.”*

Mahmoud Abbas became President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) on January 15, 2005 on the ticket of Fatah (Palestinian National Liberation Movement), the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a multi-party confederation headed by Abbas since November 11, 2004, after the death of Yasser Arafat.

Hamas is a radical Islamic fundamentalist organization which became active in the early stages of the intifada, operating primarily in the Gaza District but also in Judea and Samaria. Loosely structured, with some elements working clandestinely and others working openly through mosques and social service institutions to recruit members, raise money, organize activities, and distribute propaganda, Hamas bagged in January 2006 election a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislature.

**IMPACT OF ACCORD**

The Brussels-based Crisis Group report points out that the reconciliation accord signed on May 4, 2011, would alter politics in two ways. First, it provides for a single Palestinian government, with limited functions, of technocrats or independents, charged with unifying institutions and preparing for legislative, presidential and Palestine National Council elections in a year.

Secondly, the accord calls for a newly constituted, temporary leadership body operating in ambiguous partnership with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The key was the decision to delay security reform until after the elections.

The Crisis Group report released simultaneously in Ramallah, Gaza, Jerusalem, Washington and Brussels on July 20, 2011 calls upon the Fatah and Hamas to reach consensus on a *”professional, qualified prime minister who enjoys international support, avoiding either insistence on or exclusion of a specific candidate”*.

It also urges the two groups to form a government – composed of non-partisan technocrats chosen by the factions – that enforces a reciprocal Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire; defers to the PLO chairman’s negotiating agenda; and is eventually confirmed by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

**SIMULTANEOUSLY, NOT SEQUENTIALLY**

The Crisis Group further urges the two parties to implement the provisions of the agreement simultaneously, not sequentially, by:

– beginning integration of the West Bank and Gaza-based Palestinian Authority by unifying the bodies that will oversee much of the process, including the Public Employees Bureau (diwan al-muwazifin al-amm) and the Public Supervision Agency (haiat al-riqaba al-amma);

– commencing reform of the civil police and civil defence branches of the security sector immediately, while deferring other branches to a later stage; providing sufficient support and resources to the social reconciliation committee;

– building internal confidence in reconciliation by ending questioning and detention on political grounds; redressing arbitrary firings of government personnel; providing freedom of expression and association; stopping incitement; and reopening shuttered political and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and allowing them to operate free from harassment;

– considering PLC review of all laws and decisions passed by both West Bank and Gaza governments since June 2007 and opening court cases that relied upon such legislation to review; conducting elections for unions, professional associations and related entities over the next year to prepare for Palestine National Council elections; and – initiating a strategic dialogue to define the principles and priorities of the national movement.

The Crisis Group asks Hamas to *”affirm publicly that pending the reorganisation of the PLO, its chairman will be mandated to negotiate with Israel, that any agreement will be presented to a referendum and that the movement will respect the outcome.”*

**PRESS ISRAEL, SUPPORT NEW PALESINE GOVT.**

The Governments of Europe and the U.S., says the report, should make clear that they will judge a unified Palestinian government based on its deeds, in particular whether it enforces a reciprocal Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire; and defers to the PLO Chairman’s negotiating agenda.

Europe and the U.S. should also *”press Israel to maintain transfer of tax clearance revenues to a new Palestinian Authority government”* (formed along the lines the Group is proposing).

The report asks the Government of Egypt to facilitate movement through the Rafah crossing by increasing staffing and hours of operations to allow all those wishing to depart to do so in a timely fashion, and consider allowing the movement of goods through the Rafah crossing in order to reduce smuggling under the Gaza-Egypt border.

The Governments of the States of the Arab League are asked to make clear to Quartet members (U.S., Russia, EU, UN Secretary-General) that they will support a new Palestinian government along the lines suggested by the Crisis Group and encourage others in the international community to engage with it.

They are also called upon to promptly fulfil financial commitments to the Palestinian Authority, and create a reporting, monitoring and dispute resolution mechanism to support implementation of the reconciliation agreement.

The United States Government should maintain budgetary assistance to a new Palestinian government, and in the event U.S. Congress mandates a cutoff in budgetary support to such a government, maintain development assistance to the population and refrain from applying sanctions, particularly in the banking sector, or otherwise impeding the assistance that other states may wish to supply, says the report.

The Crisis Group urges the Government of Israel to maintain transfer of tax clearance revenues to a new PA government, and allow the import of construction material into, and exports from, Gaza.

The report explains that declining Palestinian confidence in negotiations and in the U.S., coupled with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, led Fatah and President Mahmoud Abbas to opt for a strategic reorientation of which reconciliation was one component.

Likewise, changes in Egypt led the Islamist movement Hamas to gravitate toward Cairo and accept its proposal, even as popular unrest in Syria called into question the sustainability of its close ties to President Assad’s regime.

*”There were several reasons why the parties at long last reached an agreement, though a genuine change of heart was not one of them,” says Robert Blecher, Crisis Group’s Arab-Israeli Project Director. “Neither Fatah nor Hamas changed its views of the other, and their mutual mistrust did not somehow evaporate. Rather, the accord was yet another unpredictable manifestation of the Arab Spring.”*