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The “separate” Palestinian state

Dec 21, 2018
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    To date, Hamas and Fatah have not been able to agree on the interpretation of the “reconciliation agreements” that have already been signed. Fatah claims that the agreements allow their government in Ramallah to take full responsibility for the Gaza Strip. Hamas, for its part, is and will be strongly opposed to relinquishing security control of the Gaza Strip.

    Abbas’s official news channel, Wafa, has issued a statement accusing Hamas of being part of a “Zionist-American conspiracy” to secede the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. According to this statement, Hamas is now cooperating with the United States and Israel to form a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. “There will be no Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip, and there will be no [separate Palestinian] state in the Gaza Strip,” Abbas was quoted as saying.

  • Abbas can continue to present himself to the outside world as “president of the state of Palestine” as much as he pleases. But he lives in an illusion: it is clear today that he does not represent the two million Palestinians living in a separate Hamas-controlled unit in the Gaza Strip. Abbas has not been able to set foot in the Gaza Strip for the past 11 years, and his chances of ever returning there today seem to be zero.


In early November, Hamas began paying salaries to thousands of its employees after Qatar sent a $ 15 million cash grant to the Gaza Strip. The money was brought to the Gaza Strip by leading Qatar envoy Mohammed El-Amadi via the Erez border crossing to Israel.

Qatar’s grant must be seen in the context of Egypt’s, Qatar’s and the UN’s attempts to achieve a long-standing truce between Israel and Hamas.

The payment was the first tranche of a total of $ 90 million that the emirate, according to Palestinian sources, has promised to send to the Gaza Strip over the next six months.

But the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are opposed to the agreement; reports say that one of the reasons they are against a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is that such an agreement will pave the way for the formation of a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip.

On November 11, Abbas again accused Hamas of being part of a US and Israeli “conspiracy” to separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank. He has also threatened to impose sanctions on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip under the pretext that the “conspiracy” aims to form a separate Palestinian state there.

But after all, there is in fact already a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, and it has been there since 2007, when Hamas forcibly took control of the area and overthrew Abbas’ Palestinian Authority. stick.

Yet Abbas and the Self-government have since been intoxication/' target='_blank'>in a state of denial. They have even created an alternative reality in their own heads – where they continue to believe that it is still possible to create a sovereign and independent Palestinian state encompassing the entire West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

For the past 11 years, a number of Arab countries, including Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have tried in vain to end the power struggle between Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah faction. Several “reconciliation agreements,” previously concluded between Fatah and Hamas, have never been implemented.

To date, Hamas and Fatah have not been able to agree on the interpretation of the “reconciliation agreements” already signed. Fatah claims that the agreements allow their government in Ramallah to take full responsibility for the Gaza Strip. Hamas, for its part, is and will be strongly opposed to relinquishing security control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas is most willing to offer the Abbas government limited civilian control, that is, the payment of salaries and the financing of schools, hospitals and other public institutions in the Gaza Strip.

In recent weeks, Abbas and some of his top officials in Ramallah have warned that any ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will “fix” the divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, paving the way for the formation of an independent and separate Palestinian state in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.. Now that an understanding seems to have been established between Israel, Qatar, Egypt and Hamas to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Abbas and his self-governing officials are raging.

As part of the alleged understanding, on November 8, Qatar sent millions of dollars in cash to the Gaza Strip. The money was used to pay salaries to thousands of Hamas employees and needy Palestinian families. According to some reports, a senior Qatari official, Mohammed El Amadi, arrived in the Gaza Strip carrying three stuffed suitcases totaling $ 15 million in cash.

In response, Abbas’ official news channel, Wafa, issued a statement strongly accusing Hamas of being part of a “Zionist-American conspiracy” to secede the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. According to this statement, Hamas is currently cooperating with the United States and Israel to form a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. “There will be no Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip, and there will be no [separate Palestinian] state in the Gaza Strip,” Abbas was quoted as saying.

This assertion is, of course, a utterly erroneous representation of both reality and facts. If anyone is responsible for the separate Palestinian state that already exists in the Gaza Strip, it is Fatah and Hamas, and neither Israel nor the United States. In fact, the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah has nothing at all to do cooperation/' target='_blank'>cooperation-with-israel/' target='_blank'>cooperation-with-israel/' target='_blank'>with Israel, the United States or any other third party. The strife between the two Palestinian parties is the direct result of a struggle for money and power.

Neither Israel nor the United States helped or approved of Hamas ‘violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Hamas managed to overthrow Abbas’ Palestinian Authority in Gaza, mainly because its Western-funded security forces surrendered without a fight.

Since then, Hamas and its allies in Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have made the Gaza Strip a separate and independent Palestinian state. Hamas and the PIJ do not recognize Abbas as the legitimate president of the Palestinians. In the Gaza Strip, they have their own de facto government, Hamas, their own parliament, their own security forces and militias and even their own laws.

Abbas can continue to present himself to the outside world as “president of the state of Palestine” as much as he pleases.

However, he lives in an illusion: it is clear today that he does not represent the two million Palestinians living in the separate, Hamas-controlled unit in the Gaza Strip. Abbas has not been able to set foot in the Gaza Strip for the past 11 years, and his chances of ever returning there today seem to be zero.

Hamas says if Abbas ventures into the Gaza Strip, he will be prosecuted for “high treason” – a crime punishable by death under Palestinian laws and traditions. Seen through Hamas’ eyes, Abbas is a traitor because he coordinates security cooperation/' target='_blank'>cooperation-with-israel/' target='_blank'>cooperation-with-israel/' target='_blank'>with Israel and imposes economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip.

Abbas no doubt knows that as long as Hamas and the PIJ are in the Gaza Strip, he will never be able to return there. Undoubtedly, he also knows that he feels more secure in Ramallah than in the Gaza Strip. In Ramallah, he is safe because the IDF is only a few hundred meters from his headquarters and residence. Had it not been for Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Hamas would have overthrown Abbas’ government long ago. It is Israel’s continued actions against Hamas in the West Bank that keep Abbas and his government in power.

But Abbas probably does not want to acknowledge this reality. And he probably does not want to take any responsibility for the divisions in his population, least of all the division between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Instead, he is now trying to blame everyone but himself for the fact that a separate Palestinian state already exists in the Gaza Strip. It is certain that Abbas is now accusing Israel and the United States of collaborating on the formation of a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip – even though this has been a fact for the past 11 years.

The separate Palestinian state was formed in the Gaza Strip on the day Hamas took control of the area. It was formed on the day Abbas’s security forces in the Gaza Strip surrendered to Hamas in 2007.

The separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Stripone was formed the day Abbas and his enemies in Hamas gave up respecting the many “reconciliation agreements” they had made the previous ten years.

What is even more surreal is that Abbas now accuses Hamas of collaborating cooperation/' target='_blank'>cooperation-with-israel/' target='_blank'>cooperation-with-israel/' target='_blank'>with Israel and the United States to form a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. It is a ridiculous accusation when one considers that Hamas is still seeking the annihilation of Israel and perceives the United States as an enemy of Arabs and Muslims.

But Abbas apparently does not want to be confused by reality. He prefers to continue his old strategy of blaming everyone but himself for the miserable conditions of the Palestinians. The current ceasefire agreement confirms the reality that Abbas has been trying to ignore for the past 11 years: that a separate Palestinian state exists and that it is ruled by Hamas, the PIJ and other armed groups that continue to denounce the Palestinian president’s imperial dreams.

Sources and Notes

Khaled Abu Toameh, award-winning journalist living in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Originally published by the Gatestone Institute on November 12, 2018, “ The” Separate “Palestinian State ” Translated into Danish by Mette Thomsen and published on the 20th. December 2018. Reprinted with permission from the Gatestone Institute .

Link to the article from which the image comes: “ Truce negotations and the Fatah-Hamas conflict ” Australia / Israel Review, September 3, 2018, Pinhas Inbari

Recent Articles by Khaled Abu Toameh,

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