The Hamas movement has stressed that it needs guarantees for implementing any agreement reached with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. Ismail Radwan, a leading movement figure, asserted that the countries sponsoring the reconciliation should offer such guarantees so that any future agreement would not have the same fate as that of agreements reached in the past between the two movements. He stressed at the same time that reconciliation is the movement's strategic option and that it is committed to its success.
Addressing a gathering in Gaza, he said there are several gaps in the Egyptian paper concerning the security organs, the future of the resistance, and the elections, adding that the Egyptian paper also included points that were not agreed on during the dialogue rounds.
On the other hand, an informed source in Hamas has told Asharq al-Awsat that the movement claims the Egyptian reconciliation plan recently presented to it differs in many points from the reconciliation plan presented to Khalid Mishal, the political bureau chairman, during his recent visit to Cairo. It said the plan presented to Mishal consisted of eight pages only while the one Egypt handed to the movement recently consisted of 28 pages. The source pointed out that one of the points in the Egyptian paper which the movement objects to concerns the committee formed from the Palestinian factions' representatives which is supposed to oversee the Gaza Strip's affairs until the next elections are held. It added that the new Egyptian paper omits a clause in the first plan stipulating that any decision taken by the committee cannot be negated since it represents the Palestinian consensus. As to the Palestinian security organs, the source noted that the new Egyptian plan includes a very critical clause stipulating a ban on any military formations outside the scheduled framework for the security organs which can be interpreted as a ban on the existence of military arms for the Palestinian resistance movements. The source went on to underline the impossibility of accepting this clause under any circumstances on the basis that the task of liberation has not been completed yet, especially in view of Israel's refusal to recognize the Palestinian national rights. It stressed that as far as the Hamas movement and other factions are concerned, the use of the reconciliation to harm the Palestinian people's right to resist the occupation is out of the question.
It also referred to a problematic clause in the new Egyptian paper concerning the task of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service. The paper points out that one of the service's tasks "is joint cooperation with the similar services of friendly countries to combat any actions that threaten the common peace and security or in any of the domestic security fields on condition of reciprocity." The source said this clause might add legitimacy to the security coordination undertaken by the Palestinian Authority [PA].
The source also noted that in addition to Hamas's objections to these clauses, it will present four important reservations that have nothing to do with the paper but with developments that took place after the Egyptians distributed it to the factions. The official pointed out that the movement demands that the national accord government's program should not include any reference to the Quartet's conditions which demand the renunciation of the Palestinian resistance of the occupation on the basis that it is terrorism and compliance with the agreements that the PA had signed with Israel. The source said that Hamas is demanding from Egypt and the Arab countries to declare their support for the results of the upcoming legislative and presidential elections no matter which party wins so that the Arab world does not repeat its behavior with the previous elections in which Hamas won an absolute majority.
Front Page Features