April 27 (Bloomberg) -- The rival Palestinian Hamas and Fatah groups have reached a preliminary agreement to end their almost four-year divide and form a unity government.
The agreement also calls for legislative and presidential elections in a year, Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad said in an interview after a joint press conference with Hamas negotiators. Egypt, which acted as mediator during the secret talks, will host a meeting of Palestinian factions next week for a formal signing ceremony, al-Ahmad said.
“Today, we open a new page of unity and agreement, of closing ranks and struggling together,” Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk said. He said a unity government of technocrats would be announced within a week.
The move follows protests in March in which thousands of Palestinians, inspired by the popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, rallied in support of reconciliation between Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank. The announcement also comes as Palestinian Authority officials lobby Western countries to recognize a Palestinian state in September.
“If we think of the Palestinian Authority being serious about the declaration of statehood in September, it would have been absurd with two authorities,” said Jonathan Spyer, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. “We will see how far they get.”
Peace Talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a unity agreement would put an end to any chance of peace talks, stalled since September, between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
“The Palestinian Authority must choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas,” Netanyahu said in broadcast and e-mailed comments. “The very idea of reconciliations shows the weakness of the Palestinian Authority.”
Hamas -- considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., the European Union and Israel -- rejects the peace negotiations and refuses to recognize the Jewish state.
The Obama administration sounded a wary note following the announcement. “As we have said before, the United States supports Palestinian reconciliation on terms which promote the cause of peace,” said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.
“Hamas, however, is a terrorist organization which targets civilians,” he said in an e-mail statement. “To play a constructive role in achieving peace, any Palestinian government must accept the Quartet principles and renounce violence, abide by past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist.”
‘Very Significant’
Gazans celebrated in the streets today, Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, said in a phone interview.
“This is a very significant for the Palestinian people,” Abusada said.
Fatah and Hamas officials said the two sides would form a committee to address the issue of security under a unity government.
The split between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction and the Islamic Hamas movement dates to 2007, when Hamas ousted Abbas’s forces from the Gaza Strip a year after winning parliamentary elections. That ended a coalition government with Fatah and left Abbas in control of only the West Bank.
Abbas said on March 16 that he planned to visit Gaza in a bid to heal the divide that has forced repeated delays in plans to hold elections.
Blockade
The Israeli army and Egypt both sealed off Gaza’s borders after Hamas took over, cutting off most civilian traffic and restricting trade with the territory. Israel has maintained a ground and sea blockade around Gaza ever since.
Palestinian Authority leaders have said they will seek United Nations recognition of a state in September if negotiations with Israel aren’t resumed.
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority broke down several weeks after they started in September 2010, when Netanyahu refused to extend a partial 10-month construction freeze in the West Bank and Abbas said he wouldn’t negotiate until all construction was halted.
--With assistance from Nicole Gaouette in Washington. Editors: Louis Meixler, Terry Atlas
To contact the reporters on this story: Mariam Fam in Cairo at
mfam1@bloomberg.net; Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at
gackerman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at
barden@bloomberg.net 
Hamas and Fatah reached a preliminary agreement to form a unity goverment
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