THE force of the Arab revolution, sweeping through North Africa and the Middle East, yesterday won a new victory when the campaign of the revolutionary March 15 youth movement forced the reluctant Fatah and Hamas movements to announce that a reconciliation deal will be signed next week.
The deal is to lead to a general election in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the emergence of a new national unity government.
Once the deal is signed and sealed, the release of political prisoners, whether in Gaza or the West Bank, will take place.
The scale of this victory can be judged by the fact that the whole of EU, UK and US policy in this region was dedicated to keeping Hamas and Fatah apart, and somehow or other engineering the removal of Hamas from the scene, either through Israeli military action, or through a combination of this with a blockade and western political pressure.
Yesterday the EU, the UK and the US were not rejoicing at the news, while Israel was spitting blood and declaring that this unity meant that there would be no Palestinian state, confirming for all to see that their aim had been to establish a Palestinian Bantustan, completely under their thumb.
Hamas leader Ismail Radwan confirmed on Thursday that a final reconciliation deal would be signed next week in the presence of party leaders, and added that, ‘We can best deal with the threats by signing and implementing the agreement.’
The official urged a halt to the PA’s security coordination with Israel and said Palestinians must now ‘hold fast’ to national principles.
Hamas unity delegation chief Musa Abu Marzouq admitted that ‘the Arab revolutions had their impact on the process’, and revealed that further details of the agreement will be presented to an all-factions meeting in Cairo next week, at which Hamas leader-in-exile Khalid Mash’al and Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas will okay the deal.
Senior US congressmen, however, warned that a Hamas ‘merger’ with the PA could jeopardise the millions in aid money sent to the PA each year.
Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Thursday that the world could not support the foundation of a country, when part of the regime is a ‘bona fide terrorist organisation’.
He termed the agreement ‘a fatal mistake’ that could lead to a ‘terror organisation ruling both Gaza and Judea and Samaria and the triumph of Hamas’ policies’.
He added that the consequences of ‘walking hand in hand with a terror organisation’ would ‘lead to a regression and prevent the formation of a Palestinian state’.
Earlier on Thursday, hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned that a reconciliation deal could result in a Hamas takeover of the currently PA-ruled West Bank, hinting that this perspective would require preventive Israeli military action.
The revolutionary youth of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, having given a lead, must now take the lead and demand the organisation and mobilisation of all of the masses of Palestine to declare their state next September.
It must be established in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in East Jerusalem, with all refugees having the right to return, and all of the West Bank settlements abandoned by the Zionists.
There must be a massive campaign to free the prisoners in the Israeli jails, including the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader, Marwan al-Barghouthi.
The revolutionary youth must form a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International so as to continue to provide the necessary revolutionary leadership for this historic struggle, and to win the maximum support for it from the revolutionary workers and youth of the Arab states and from the working class of the world.
