In politics, almost everything is about timing. It is difficult to say if the recent "election" of Mahmoud Abbas by the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as President of the state of Palestine came at a good time.
Whoever advised Abbas, who is also the President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), leader of Fatah and Chairman of the PLO's Executive Committee, to accept a third position at this critical stage in Palestinian history, may have pushed the Hamas-PNA conflict beyond the point of no return.
It is clear that latest act of brinkmanship was meant to undermine Hamas, which organised a conference on the "Right of Return" last week in Damascus. Some Fatah activists feared the conference could become a foundation to form a new Palestinian national council, by-passing the existing council controlled by Abbas loyalists.
The symbolic position of President of the State of Palestine has been vacant since the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004. He was elected in March 1989 following his unilateral declaration of the birth of a Palestinian state a year earlier.
At that time, Arafat's move was viewed as clever strategy to put pressure on Israel and the US to force a negotiated settlement. It all worked reasonably well when Arafat, the titular head of all Palestinians, was alive. During that time, Hamas, the most influential movement in Gaza, had chosen not to join the PNA. But it retained a good working relationship with Arafat through its leader, the late Shaikh Ahmad Yassin. It was only when both had died that Hamas decided to participate in the Palestinian political process.
Tables turn
This is when the tables turned. Hamas won the legislative elections of 2006 as Fatah was routed. It was a humiliating defeat for the organisation that claimed to represent the aspirations of all Palestinians. Abbas was forced to ask its leaders to form a new government. The rest is history.
That election is now seen as the trigger to the most dangerous internal Palestinian crisis in modern times. The animosity between injured Fatah and buoyant Hamas, which has been in control of the besieged Gaza Strip since the summer of 2007, has divided the Palestinians and the territory on which they were hoping to set up their independent state.
Today, after the failure of the latest Egyptian initiative to secure reconciliation and end Hamas' control of Gaza, the division seems irreparable. Gaza is again under Israeli siege while the political stalemate is crippling the PNA and its organisations.
Now both parties feel their luck could change. A constitutional deadline is looming and Abbas has declared his next move. He has announced that unless Hamas accepts dialogue and reverses its actions in Gaza he will call for simultaneous presidential and legislative elections early next year. Hamas has cried foul. In their view, Abbas' term as president ends in January but the Legislative Council has one more year to go. As both sides engage in a complicated legal duel, each brandishing an article in the basic law that supports his view, the Palestinian mess gets murkier.
Thus the election of Abbas as President of Palestine comes as a new development in this ongoing tussle. Will his new title, symbolic as it is, help him overcome any constitutional caveats that stand in the way of holding new double elections?
That may be the case. But failing to sway Hamas and end the rift, Abbas, who continues to enjoy the backing of Israel and the US, needs to prepare the Palestinian political scene for the advent of a new administration in Washington and a new government in Israel. Still, an Israeli paper reported few days ago that a security panel has called on the government to prevent the holding of new Palestinian elections for fear of another Hamas victory. It also predicted the Abbas' political marginalisation in the coming months.
Failing to dislodge Hamas in Gaza, Abbas will face the dire possibility of restricting elections to the West Bank. But this will further fragment the Palestinian cause and its supporters.
Now that Fatah and Abbas have made their move, we wait for the reaction. It could all boil down to a de facto Fatahland in the West Bank and Hamastan in Gaza. One thing was clear last week and that is for millions of Palestinians news of Abbas' election as president of their non-existing state was met with indifference, some may even say sadness and dismay.
Osama Al Sharif is a veteran Jordanian journalist based in Amman.
