Cairo Swings Right Round to Radical Palestinian Positions

Egypt has formally invited all Palestinian factions for a summit meeting in Cairo on Nov. 9. They will be presented with a draft plan compiled by Egyptian intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman for ending the Hamas-Fatah feud which has severed the Gaza Strip from the West Bank.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Middle East sources have obtained exclusive access to the four-page “Proposed Text for the Cairo Accord.”

It is divided into five parts: Preamble, National Plan for Government Structure, General Principles, Internal Relations between Fatah and Hamas, and Ground Rules for Negotiations.

Fatah, led by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, have come together on principles set out in the Preamble, such as the ban on fraternal bloodshed among Palestinian factions, territorial Integration – a merger of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit – and another ban on reciprocal detentions.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources note that this provision cancels out a major American project going forward at present to establish a West Bank security force whose primary mission is to suppress rising Hamas strength on the West Bank and prop up Mahmoud Abbas’ authority.

The next section focuses on a National Palestinian Government of Consent “whose functions are to break the siege oppressing the Palestinian people” [the blockade of the Gaza Strip]; overhaul Palestinian security and intelligence forces and oversee inter-Arab assistance programs for the Palestinians.

This section allows for external Arab oversight for inter-Arab assistance programs and calls for a mixed Arab force of observers to monitor implementation of these provisions in Palestinian areas.

Their source is not specified but presumed to be Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Hamas is on a roll

Until that force is on the ground, joint Hamas-Fatah teams will monitor their observance of the accord.

This section also refers to the continuation of the Tahadiya, the informal Hamas-Israel truce for Gaza that went into effect for six months in June and expires in December, 2008.

Contrarily, Clause 6 of the Egyptian text affirms: “Resistance is an integral part of the Palestinian National Consent and the legitimate right of the Palestinian people as long as the “occupation (by Israel) is maintained.”

Our sources note that “resistance” is the customary Arab euphemism for terror. Cairo, the first Arab state to sign peace with Israel, would appear to have added its endorsement to Palestinian violence as a major concession for drawing the radical Hamas into the process.

If approved at the Palestinian Cairo summit, Hamas will have won documentary proof of Cairo’s formal endorsement of terror operations against Israel to hold up as a victory for all the radical factions operating in the Gaza strip: the Jihad Islam, Fatah-Al Aqsa Brigades, the Fronts and the Popular Resistance Committees.

Cairo’s endorsement of “resistance” would also apply to Palestinian missile and rocket fire against its civilians, in sharp contradiction of its call to continue the Gaza truce.

It would also give Hamas a doctrinal victory over the Fatah leaders who would renounce terrorism.

Omar Suleiman’s draft yields another major concession to Palestinian extremists: the declaration that “all the Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their homes before they were uprooted.”

Israel is backed by several governments in its opposition to the return of all the 1948 refugees to their former homes as a thinly-veiled device for destroying the Jewish State.

No mention of Israel or peace

DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s political sources rate the Egyptian text as one of the most anti-Israel documents compiled in many a year. “Israel” does not rate a single mention. Neither does a peace accord figure anywhere, certainly not as the mainspring of a Palestinian state. In letter and spirit, the document negates Israel’s existence – much less recognizing its role in regional political and diplomatic affairs.

Thursday, Oct. 23, Israel’s President Shimon Peres, 84, met President Hosni Mubarak at his Sinai residence at Sharm al Sheikh. He called this encounter important because, he explained, Egypt was back at the center of the Middle East stage and therefore an important force for promoting peace with the Palestinians.

The document to be presented to Palestinian leaders on November 9 refutes that evaluation.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Middle East sources confirm that, far from returning to the center of the Middle East stage, Egypt has been marginalized to the extent that it is forced to submit to Hamas’s manipulative wiles. The Palestinian extremists are abusing the Mubarak’s regime’s peacemaking services as a lever for seizing control of the West Bank as well as Gaza and of the umbrella Palestinian Liberation Organization.