Playing along

By Salama A Salama

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With Hamas and Fatah at each other's throats, one cannot help detect foreign interference by the Americans, the Europeans, and even the Arabs. Everyone seems to hope that once Hamas is brought to its knees, peace will somehow follow.

A recent report in the US periodical Conflicts Forum, describes how Elliot Abrams, a senior neo-con in the US administration, designed a scheme to bring down Hamas. The scheme calls for arming and training Fatah fighters and using them to bring down the government of Ismail Haniyeh. The aim is to consolidate the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas and reinforce Palestinian Authority (PA) security services. As part of the scheme, Mohamed Dahlan, who heads the PA security service, is running two training camps for Fatah fighters in Ramallah and Jericho.

The Abrams scheme was put together last February, just after Hamas won the elections, and was designed with the help of some of President Abbas's aides and calls for Egypt and Jordan to supply Fatah fighters with weapons. Egypt and Jordan realised the perils involved and declined, but the US administration went ahead anyway. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised to help President Abbas's security services during her recent visit to Palestine that was only part of the Abrams scheme.

The recent clashes between Fatah and Hamas came as no surprise to most Arab players. Tired of mediation, the Arabs left the whole conflict in the hands of US and European envoys. Arab capitals are waiting to see the outcome of the current conflict. Mostly, they hope that Fatah will win and force Hamas to accept a national unity government; a government ready to conform to US and Israeli expectations. Once this happens, Secretary Rice will resume US diplomatic efforts, talk more to President Abbas, and get the Israelis to play ball.

The fact that Israel has been changing its attitude of late is relevant to the Abrams scheme. Israel has just released part of frozen Palestinian funds and is expected to relax restrictions on checkpoints. Olmert and Livni have been saying good things about President Abbas. The Palestinian president, basking in his international popularity, refused to interrupt his visit to Davos even when all hell broke loose at home.

As details of Western schemes for the region come to light, Arab initiatives remain as foggy as ever. Cairo recently announced that an Egyptian initiative was discussed in a meeting attended by Qaddafi and Bouteflika in Libya. No other details were given, and we mustn't hold our breath. Arab countries are unlikely to tell us what they intend to do until after Washington has laid its cards on the table. For now, the Abrams scheme seems to be on schedule. President Abbas and Olmert are edging closer to conceiving a "political horizon" -- whatever that may be -- for restarting the peace talks. We're led to assume that Israel will pull out of Palestinian territories once the Palestinians form a government that recognises Israel. A Palestinian state may emerge at some stage, and only then would negotiations start on the final details. And who knows? Maybe the Palestinians will even have fresh elections, so long as they don't risk bringing Hamas back to power.

This is the general outline of Abrams's scheme for the region. So far Arab countries have been playing along, helping President Abbas to consolidate power, and waiting for the dust to settle. But the scheme may backfire. Fatah and Hamas may eventually agree on a government of national unity, even one that is acceptable to the US. But there is no guarantee that Israel would make the kind of concessions that would make peace hold.