Encouraging signs?

The recent willingness shown by Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to be a part of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), the umbrella group holding together all the major resistance factions, is a welcome development. Jihad, at the time of going to press on Tuesday, was to attend for the first time a meeting of the PLO executive committee. This should be seen as a sign the group’s willingness to join mainstream politics in their fight for an independent homeland. Jihad and Hamas have long boycotted the PLO but have shown signs of easing their position after Mahmud Abbas replaced the late Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader in January. So does this mean there has been a tectonic shift in the attitude of the armed resistance vis-a-vis Israel and also towards violence? Though it is too early to make any predictions on this count there seems to be pattern to this development since the election legitimised Mahmud Abbas’ position as the Palestinian President.
Abbas’ election showed the whole world that democracy can work in Palestine and the elections in nearby Iraq only helped to buttress the fact democracy will work in the region. Again, in Egypt, the calls for democracy have been growing shriller by the day, and even the Islamic Brotherhood has shown its willingness to participate in the democratic process. That this development has been there for all to see in places as different as Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt should not have been lost on the Resistance. Moreover, the United States has been pushing so-called armed groups like Lebanon’s Hizbollah to shun the gun and to join the political mainstream to reap the fruits of elected office. Therefore, does the new development signal that the Resistance is also thinking on the same lines, particularly since they had recently contested local body elections?
Hamas has made it clear that its readiness to participate in the PLO does not mean it has renounced its commitment to a Palestine incorporating modern-day Israel whereas the PLO charter calls for the creation of a Palestinian state only in land conquered by Israel in the 1967 war. Clearly there is a lot of chasm left uncovered. Before anyone jumps to any conclusion on this it has to borne in mind that the Palestine-Israel conflict is like a minefield sown in a quagmire. Therefore, only time can tell whether the new development is a light at the end of the tunnel, or the light from another train rushing past.

This is an editorial published in Oman Tribune