The "Separate" Palestinian State

by Khaled Abu Toameh
November 12, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13281/separate-palestinian-state

Translations of this item:

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 are supposed to allow its Ramallah-based government to assume full responsibility over the Gaza Strip. Hamas, for its part, remains vehemently opposed to relinquishing security control over the Gaza Strip.
Abbas's official news agency, Wafa, issued a strongly worded statement accusing Hamas of being part of a "Zionist-American conspiracy" to detach the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. According to the statement, Hamas is now cooperating with the US and Israel to establish 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," the statement quoted Abbas as saying.
Abbas can continue to present himself to the world as the "President of the State of Palestine" as much as he wants. He is only living in an illusion: it is obvious by now that he does not represent the two million Palestinians who are living in a separate Hamas-controlled entity 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 now seem to be zero.

For the past 11 years, a number of Arab countries have tried to end the power struggle between Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, to no avail. Several "reconciliation" agreements previously signed between Fatah and Hamas have never been implemented. Pictured: Abbas (right) and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal meet on November 24, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt, in one "reconciliation" attempt. (Photo by Mohammed al-Hams/Khaled Mashaal's Office via Getty Images)

Last week, Hamas began paying salaries to thousands of its employees after Qatar sent a $15 million grant in cash to the Gaza Strip. The money was brought to the Gaza Strip by senior Qatari envoy Mohammed El-Amadi through the Erez border crossing with Israel.

The Qatari grant is in the context of efforts by Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations to reach a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas.

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

The Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, however, remain opposed to an agreement; reports say that one of the reasons they are opposed to a truce accord between Israel and Hamas is because such a deal will pave the way for the establishment 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 also threatened to impose punitive measures against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on the pretext that the "conspiracy" was aimed at establishing a separate Palestinian state there.

The reality, after all, is that there already is a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, and It has been there since 2007, when Hamas violently seized control of the area and toppled Abbas's Palestinian Authority.

Abbas and the PA, all the same, have since been living in denial. They have even created an alternate reality in their head -- one that continues to believe that it is still possible to establish a sovereign and independent Palestinian state in 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 to end the power struggle between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah faction, to no avail. Several "reconciliation" agreements previously signed 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 are supposed to allow its Ramallah-based government to assume full responsibility over the Gaza Strip. Hamas, for its part, remains vehemently opposed to relinquishing security control over the Gaza Strip. The most Hamas is willing to offer Abbas's government is limited civilian control, which means paying salaries and funding schools, hospitals and other public institutions in the Gaza Strip.

In the past few weeks, Abbas and some of his top officials in Ramallah have warned that any truce between Israel and Hamas will "consolidate" the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, thus paving the way for the establishment of an independent and separate Palestinian state in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Now that understandings appear to have been reached between Israel, Qatar, Egypt and Hamas to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Abbas and his PA officials are seething with rage.

As part of the purported understandings, Qatar sent millions of dollars in cash to the Gaza Strip on November 8. The money will be used to pay 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 suitcases stuffed with $15 million.

In response, Abbas's official news agency, Wafa, issued a strongly worded statement accusing Hamas of being part of a "Zionist-American conspiracy" to detach the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. According to the statement, Hamas is now cooperating with the US and Israel to establish 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," the statement quoted Abbas as saying.

This claim, of course, is a total misrepresentation of both the reality and facts. If anyone is responsible for a separate Palestinian state that already exists in the Gaza Strip, it is Fatah and Hamas, not Israel and the US. Actually, the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah is completely unrelated to Israel, the US or any other third party. The dispute between the two Palestinian parties is the direct result of a power struggle over money and power.

Neither Israel nor the US helped or condoned Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Hamas managed to topple Abbas's Palestinian Authority in Gaza mainly because his Western-funded security forces surrendered without putting up a fight.

Since then, Hamas and its allies in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have turned the Gaza Strip into a separate and independent Palestinian state. Hamas and PIJ do not recognize Abbas as the legitimate president of the Palestinians. They have, in the Gaza Strip, 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 world as the "President of the State of Palestine" as much as he wants.

He is only living in an illusion: it is obvious by now that he does not represent the two million Palestinians who are living in a separate Hamas-controlled entity 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 now seem to be zero.

Hamas says that if Abbas dares to enter the Gaza Strip, he will be put on trial for "high treason" -- a crime punishable by death in accordance with Palestinian laws and traditions. In the eyes of Hamas, Abbas is a traitor because he is conducting security coordination with Israel and imposing economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip.

Abbas undoubtedly knows that as long as Hamas and PIJ are in the Gaza Strip, he will never be able to return there. He also undoubtedly knows that he feels safer being in Ramallah than in the Gaza Strip. In Ramallah, he is safe because the IDF is only a few hundred meters away from his headquarters and residence. Were it not for the presence of Israel in the West Bank, Hamas would have toppled Abbas's government a long time ago. It is Israel's ongoing crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank that is keeping Abbas and his government in power.

Abbas most likely does not want to acknowledge this reality. He also most likely does not want to accept any responsibility for the divisions among his people, particularly the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Instead, he is now seeking to accuse everyone else but himself for the fact that there already is a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. Surreally, Abbas is now accusing Israel and the US of working towards establishing a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip -- when this has been the reality for the past 11 years.

The separate Palestinian state was created in the Gaza Strip the day Hamas took control over the area. It was created there the day Abbas's security forces in the Gaza Strip surrendered to Hamas in 2007.

The separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip was created the day Abbas and his enemies in Hamas failed to honor the several "reconciliation" agreements they had signed in the past decade.

What is even more surreal is that Abbas is now accusing Hamas of collaboration with Israel and the US to establish a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. This accusation is ridiculous, given the fact that Hamas continues to seek the destruction of Israel and considers the US an enemy of Arabs and Muslims.

Abbas, however, apparently does not want to be confused by reality. He prefers to continue his long-standing strategy of blaming everyone else but himself for the miseries of the Palestinians. The emerging truce deal only confirms the reality that Abbas has been trying to ignore for the past 11 years: that a separate Palestinian state does exist, and it is run by Hamas, PIJ and other armed groups who continue to give the Palestinian president the imperial brush-off.

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

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Related Topics: Palestinian Authority

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Comment on this item

15 Reader Comments

L.J. Middleton • Nov 20, 2018 at 03:14

When Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem there was no Palestine State. When Egypt occupied Gaza there was no Palestine State. Indeed, there were no Palestinians. And there still are no Palestinians and there is no Palestine State. And there never will be a Palestine State because the Islamic World doesn't want a Palestine State. The Palestinians are just other groups of Islamic supremacists in the mould of ISIS/ISIL. Palestinians are there to keep a steady terror war against Israel and that is why there will be no Palestine State. What Israel needs to do is retake Gaza and the West Bank. The West needs to stay out of the conflict and let's face facts there was never a peace process. The United Nations and the West have never wanted to see a Jewish Israeli State, but had little choice, other than to invade back in 1948, to accept Ben Gurion's declaration of an Israeli State.

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Mike 71 • Nov 12, 2018 at 21:49

When one's adversaries are riven with internal divisions, it is unnecessary to intervene, but only sit back and not interfere. Israel need not sow Palestinian divisions; Palestinians are already doing that to themselves. The suggested Hamas-Israeli truce need not occur to perpetrate Palestinian discord. While Israel must respond to current Hamas rocket attacks, Mahmoud Abbas has become impotent and made himself irrelevant to the conflict in the wake of growing Israeli contacts with the Gulf Cooperation Council states.

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Ralf Schumann • Nov 12, 2018 at 16:25

Indeed, the reality on the ground can never be as confused as the minds of the leadership of Hamas and PLO/PA aka Fatah. Isn't it time the UN and assorted governments across the West remove any form of recognition of statehood from these delusional warlords? Feeding their vanity only prolongs the suffering and gives Hizbollah opportunity to further grow and muscle up.

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Chaz • Nov 12, 2018 at 14:26

Abbas is like George Soros - living forever and making it seem like an eternity to the normal people of the world.

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william carr • Nov 12, 2018 at 13:33

The things Abbas has said recently seem so fantastic and indicate that he is losing touch with reality, perhaps some kind of senile dementia is affecting him.

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Oldone • Nov 12, 2018 at 11:35

The "real" reality is that there is no state of Palestine...It doesn't exist...Therefore there are no Palestinians...The fate of the people rests with the Israelis...The people who live in the two areas are too "confused" to realize that the only way forward, to a peaceful solution to their problem, is cooperation with Israel and the U.S...They must cease letting Arab oil money control them...Joining a meaningful coalition of the U.S. and Israel, will enable the establishment of a sovereign state of Palestine...Maybe...If they will stop the missile barrages, and start acting like grownups, and stop the jihad posturing, that they have manifested since the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in 1948 ...The ball has been in their court for 70 years, and they won't, or can't hit it back...

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L.J. Middleton

Oldone • Nov 20, 2018 at 03:30

You should have stopped at your first sentence. The rest was just Westernized liberal political, academia and media styled nonsense. No matter what books I read by the leading intellectuals, read professorial dimwits, on Israel every one of them is wrong. Islam is the problem. Islam must dominate every land they inhabit or have conquered. What's really funny to me is that the United Nations, which is a joke on the free world, makes resolution after resolution against Israel and rarely says anything against the Islamists of the world. Once upon a time the West controlled the UN, but today the UN is controlled by the Islamist OPEC nations. Western politicians, academia and media are controlled the Islamist OPEC nations as well. Our Western academia accepts millions of dollars from Islamist Princes to peddle the absurd notion that Islam is a religion of peace, and Socialist liberals practically flagellate themselves on their pity-pot for Palestinians. Do you suppose some enterprising person might ask "Where do Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah (PLO) get all their weapons from?" Yet, Israel is restrained from purchasing weapons from the West. Imagine this if Dearborn, Michigan Muslims were rocketing their neighbours in the United States, would the president just say they're oppressed and we should end the Christian occupation of Dearborn. Well, that's actually something that's quite real in the here and now as when Christians try to get the Muslims to the negotiating table on assimilation and integration all the Muslims tell them is to "Go Home!" Things are only going to get worse from here. If you want to know what will happen to Europe, Britain, Canada, United States and the Scandinavian countries as Muslims become more politically powerful, the answer is in the West Bank and Gaza as the Muslims persecute Christians.

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elee • Nov 12, 2018 at 11:06

They've already got a two-state solution and it hasn't solved anything. Further fractionizing/factionalzing is to be encouraged if it helps them realize the barbarism in which they choose to live. Killing Jews will do no more for their social problems than pogroms did to relieve mediaeval European plagues. Anybody think they'll start deposing gangsters or imams any time soon? Didn't think so.

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SUZANNE DRAGAN • Nov 12, 2018 at 10:20

Thank you for clarifying the situation. Would that the Palestinians find a leader who genuinely cares about their people and wants to make a lasting Peace with Israel.

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Joe K • Nov 12, 2018 at 10:08

I think the experiment with giving back land to Islamists didn't work out too well in Gaza. Don't think they will be doing that one again.

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Eugene Kelly • Nov 12, 2018 at 09:55

I wish someone would compile a total of all the billion$$ in "Aid" given to the PLO for the past 50 years. WHERE has this money gone? Every Palestinian should be wealthy, with all the money, food aid, fuel aid given to them. of course, 99% of it was stolen by the corrupt "Palestinian leadership"

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gerald m serlin • Nov 12, 2018 at 09:42

Hamas or Fatah. Each one is worse than the other. Both of them should be put out of business ASAP.

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John Miller • Nov 12, 2018 at 09:38

The fact that Abbas does not dare to enter Gaza is something of which the western liberal elite finds too inconvenient to acknowledge or of which they are sublimely ignorant and therefore unable to grasp. Abbas, like every other tinpot dictator is only concerned with feathering his own nest. The misery of the Palestinians, far from being his priority is a tool he uses to hoodwink the gullible pro-Palestinian lobby in western politics. Those who disagree should study the thoughts, words and actions of Comrade Corbyn and his ilk.

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Albert Reingewirtz • Nov 12, 2018 at 09:26

Simple, Israel should end Abbas protection to end all confusions. It would be much simpler to deal with one Islamic terror gang then two. Then cleanse out all of the PA to end all Islamic terror. After this is the ancestral land of the Jewish Nation. Theirs is in Arabia.

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Channah • Nov 12, 2018 at 06:51

There is not state of Gaza and there will not be a formalized Palestinian state other than Jordan. The world does not need more dysfunctional terror states run by those who only know war. Hamas does very little with running the infrastructure needed for a state, much preferring to use the land as a base from which to attack Israel. Gaza is more a colony of the Arab countries that send the funds, such as Qatar. Gaza and Hamas cannot exist on their own. As far as Abbas' West Bank goes, as the article pointed out, he relies on Israel for security, and probably a lot more.

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