The visit of Prime Minister Hamdallah accompanied by a high-level delegation from the Palestinian government in Ramallah today to the Gaza Strip to complete the project of ending the Palestinian division is undoubtedly a major and important event for the Palestinian people, its history, cause, and future. The intensity and abundance of joy, witnessed by all among our Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, show the observer the extent of the pain and suffering left by the division in the souls and hearts of our people.
The end of the Palestinian fading process that began ten years ago started to become apparent weeks ago, along with the reasons and motives that prompted the two parties of the division, Fatah and Hamas, under Egyptian sponsorship, to work seriously and with ideal acceleration to reach an agreement. These reasons are numerous and complex, related to regional alignments and the implications of these alignments on the internal Palestinian situation and the future role of some renewed Middle Eastern regional countries. Delving now into analyzing these reasons and motives would divert us from the article's title and goal… Therefore, I limit myself to this note now to return to it in a special and expanded article befitting the event and its importance.
Returning us to the Palestinian wedding and the celebration of the beginning of ending the division and the voices blessing this step show us the extent of our Palestinian people's thirst for harmony, unity, and calm to focus everyone's attention on the greater danger to the fate of our cause, our people's future, and its national project: focusing on confronting the occupation of our homeland and plundering our land and natural resources. Some youth from Gaza wrote in the sands of Gaza: 'Our unity is our strength'… You were truthful, O patriots… Unity is strength, and if you wish, it is the only power in our hands to confront the Israeli colonial project with Arab support to abort our sacred cause. You realized this dialectic from the first day of the division, and it took the leadership of both Hamas and Fatah ten years to realize it.
Amid this great event and the joy that envelops us all, we must stop and think about some matters that could slow down the path of the project to end the division to reach full reconciliation and, in the worst cases, unfortunately, abort it:
First, I describe the situation we are in now - to which President Mahmoud Abbas and the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, supported by the honorable Yahya Sinwar, gave the green light - as a project and not an isolated, standalone step.
The green light was the first step in this project after Hamas met President Abbas's demands, and the visit of Prime Minister Dr. Rami Hamdallah was the second step. Ahead of us are many steps and a complex path that we must all follow and support with all our strength and resilience to succeed. In the paths of achieving this project, we will encounter deep and embarrassing pitfalls that require everyone, especially the two parties of the division, Fatah and Hamas, to be patient and open-hearted for the homeland and its interest. This phase, which may last for months, requires accompanying it with national democratic opposition with care and high national and unifying sensitivity to overcome obstacles and not leave the conflicting parties to their narrow-sighted disputes over their interests. And the masses of our people wherever they are, especially the masses of Hamas and Fatah, must increase pressure on the parties of the division to successfully complete this project and ultimately reach full national reconciliation.
Second, it must be noted that the division that began with the coup was a project in multiple stages, evolving from political division to deep geographic and social division. Overcoming these stages and the situation entrenched by the division must be a project with bold and studied steps to avoid regression. The division project, blessed by the occupation, nurtured and supported by some Arab regimes, took the ball out of the Palestinian field for years. We now hold the ball in our hands and carry it together to transfer it to the internal Palestinian field. This step disturbs the occupation, worries some Arab regimes, and conflicts with some selfish interests of some leaders of the two organizations, Hamas and Fatah, who benefited from the division. These three parties will not stand idly by and watch from afar as we transfer our national ball to our national field to achieve full national reconciliation. These three forces will work hard with all their power and influence to obstruct the project of ending the division. Here, all of us—factions, national forces, and sincere masses—must stand firm against them and support the parties of the division and urge them tirelessly to move forward with the project of ending the division, which contains a supreme national interest.
Third and finally, I remind that the division's motives were purely political, monopolistic, and authoritarian, while national reconciliation is distinctly political and social.
Ending the division is only a political step in multiple stages. The path to full national reconciliation, both political and social, is long and complex. The political division was mainly between Fatah and Hamas, but it also affected all other Palestinian forces that were not parties and swept them along in the tug-of-war of this side or that, in one way or another, affecting the entire Palestinian national project. Ending the division is an important and essential step for political reconciliation. This step is primarily undertaken by the leaderships of the two organizations, Fatah and Hamas, but to make it a solid pillar to restore cohesion to the Palestinian national project to face the serious challenges of the stage, all Palestinian forces, Islamic and national, must participate in the political reconciliation project to reach the only possible goal to face the major challenges: a national unity government that excludes no one from the Palestinian political spectrum. Only with this step can we return the national ship to its correct course to face the winds that will blow it north and south in the near future.
Full national reconciliation will not be achieved only by achieving its political aspect nor even by appointing a full national unity government.
As mentioned above, national reconciliation has a political aspect and another social one. The division entrenched the social dimension and built high walls and dug wide and deep pits between the members of one people, especially between the members of Hamas and Fatah. Both organizations continuously fueled this social division over the past ten years, and whenever signs appeared to extinguish the fire of hatred and animosity between the masses of the two sides, we observed how some leaders of the two organizations, lacking national sensitivity, reignited the fire of social discord.
To reach full national reconciliation, we must demolish the walls of division and close the pits of hatred, animosity, and incitement. This is the responsibility of everyone, from top, middle, and local leaders. Here appears the importance of the national masses, who must push towards closing the file of incitement and hatred through frankness, reconciliation, and apology… Admitting mistakes is a virtue.
