The Hamas and Fatah are fighting since 1987 the legitimacy of the Palestinian leadership. Despite a common goal, the recognition of a Palestinian state, they are unable to get around a table to discuss a strategy. Worse, they are fighting for power, for money too, putting a little more at risk chances to install a lasting peace, or at least a compromise on the difficult land, scorched by more than half -century wars.

What is the difference between Hamas and Fatah?

The 2006 elections showed that the Palestinian territories were well cut in half, with a distribution roughly balanced the vote (slightly in favor of Hamas, however). This “small victory” HAMAS was quickly confiscated by the Fatah demanded that the Presidency of the authority (for Mahmoud Abbas also chairman of Fatah), Hamas getting (only) the prime minister (for Haniyeh also president HAMAS).

With this coup, the Fatah holds the security services and does its best to hinder the work of the Prime Minister.

This cozy war government buildings found its expression in the violent streets, littered with corpses of both sides. It led in 2007 to a civil war in the Gaza Strip, since in the hands of Hamas.

What is the difference between Hamas and Fatah?

The Fatah (Conquest Arabic)

The Fatah is a political movement whose primary purpose (and only) is to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. It does not have a priori religious foundations. There is a resistance movement, socialist tendency, as has been the Resistance in France during the German occupation. It appeared (1950), just after the creation of Israel (1946) or, to be more precise, in reaction to the creation of the Jewish state.

We must not confuse the Fatah and the PLO (Organization for the Liberation of Palestine). The PLO was created much later, in 1964, by the Arab states, led by Egyptian President Nasser , leader of pan-Arabism. NASSER, concerned about the growing influence of Fatah, had the idea to control by absorbing it in a broader set consists of multiple factions. Chance, after the Six Day War (1967), which saw the defeat of Egypt against Israel, the Fatah became the backbone of the PLO.

In November 1967, the Fatah rejected the resolution No. 242 of the United Nations and proposed the creation of a Palestinian state “secular and democratic” in which Christians, Jews and Muslims would enjoy equal rights. It is believed dreamed today.

Yasser Arafat

Yasser Arafat’s Fatah was the main interlocutor of Israel, to the point that in 1993, the Palestinian Authority was built from the organization chart of Fatah. The presidency of Fatah Yasser Arafat was entrusted to, until his mysterious death in 2004 at Val de Grace. The Fatah administers the Palestinian territories today (with the exception of the Gaza Strip).

The Fatah is headed by Mahmoud Abbas .

He recognized since 1993 (the Oslo Accords) Israel’s right to existence, putting course as a prerequisite reciprocal Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state alongside him.

Mahmoud Abbas

The HAMAS (zeal in Arabic)

Hamas has one goal: to destroy the Jewish state. Hamas rejected the Oslo accords of 1993, aborted first steps towards peace, from the to-talk secrets between Israelis Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat Palestinians. There is also explicit in its charter that will to destroy the Jewish state. His ideology, as its organization, rely almost exclusively on religious principles of Sunni Islam, translated in the most extreme terms. Offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas was born in 1987 during the first intifada and well after the Fatah.

It is always a hard line, no compromise with the Jewish state. He wants a Islamized Palestine, administered exclusively by Muslims on the principles of the Koran.

Today stationed in the Gaza Gaza, Hamas saw its border with Egypt to close with the removal by the military Egyptian President Mohamed MORSI. The confinement of the population, deterioration of health and economic conditions, the repeated conflicts with Israel will they lead him to finally negotiate with President Abbas?

Dispatch AFP November 2014

A series of explosions targeted on Friday morning, the homes and vehicles of Fatah members in the Gaza Strip. These attacks were not the victims. Fatah accused Hamas of being responsible.

The homes and vehicles of Palestinian movement Fatah representatives in Gaza were targeted, Friday, November 7, a number of small explosions. These attacks occurred in the space of a few hours before 6 pm 30, were no casualties and caused only minor damage, said the movement.

A leaflet left at the scene of an explosion is signed by the organization of the Islamic state, but Fatah sources doubt the authenticity of this message. Later in the day Friday, the party of Mahmoud Abbas said he considered Hamas responsible for the attacks.

“The Fatah Central Committee condemns the crimes that occurred this morning (Friday) against its executives and is wearing Hamas responsible for these crimes,” said a senior Fatah official, Nasser al-Qidwa, during a press conference in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The motivations of these attacks are still unknown. Nevertheless, the Islamist movement Hamas, which dominates the territory, quickly condemned the “criminal” attacks and ordered to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Tensions between Fatah and Hamas

The explosions occurred just days before the tenth anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, a date originally tensions between Fatah and Hamas. For the first time in years, the death of the first president of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah leader history will indeed publicly commemorated on November 11 in the Gaza Strip, which the Islamist Hamas took control the price of one civil war with Fatah, secular, in 2007. one of the Friday morning explosions targeted a podium climb west of Gaza for precisely these commemorations.

These attacks also come as the two rival branches of the Palestinian movement agreed in April to form a government of reconciliation.

After these attacks, the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, was forced to cancel a planned visit Saturday in the Gaza Strip. The head of the reconciliation government was supposed to meet the new head of European diplomacy, Federica Mogherini, on the occasion of the first visit of the latter on the spot.

Federica Mogherini “always to project” to go to Gaza Saturday, said a spokesman for the European Union. According to him, she will meet Rami Hamdallah later in the evening in Ramallah, West Bank.

These events also took place while the Old City of Jerusalem known in recent weeks renewed tension between the Jewish and Muslim communities. After the death of a second Israeli attack followed a car bombing Wednesday in east Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Friday that the houses of terrorists who attacked Israel be destroyed.

An article in the October 2017 Point

Fatah and the Palestinian Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement in Cairo

Fatah and the Palestinian Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement in Cairo © AFP / AFP SAID KHATIB

The Islamist movement Hamas and its Palestinian rival Fatah in Cairo on Thursday signed a reconciliation agreement to end a decade of devastating heartbreak, allowing themselves two months to solve the most difficult problems.

Both parties still at loggerheads ago few weeks have set a December 1 deadline for a transfer of power in the Gaza Strip, now ruled unchallenged by Hamas, said in a statement the Egyptian Information who sponsored the negotiations.

The Palestinian Authority, internationally recognized entity supposed to foreshadow an independent Palestinian state, should that date assume “full responsibility” in the Gaza Strip, the statement said.

Both sides give up that date to settle all their differences, it added. A further meeting is planned in Cairo on 21 November.

Details of the agreement were not disclosed in the statements made to reporters in Cairo.

In what would be a dramatic demonstration of the reconciliation, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to visit soon in Gaza, told AFP Zakaria al-Agha, head of Abbas’ Fatah party in the Gaza Gaza.

Other advanced reconciliation, 3,000 police of the Palestinian Authority will be deployed in the Gaza Strip and the borders with Israel and Egypt, told AFP on condition of anonymity a senior official involved in the negotiations .

Moreover Abbas should raise “very soon” the financial measures taken in 2017 to force Hamas to conciliation, said al-Agha.

The visit of Mr. Abbas in the Gaza Strip would be the first since 2007.

Egyptian sponsorship ‘

Hamas won the parliamentary in 2006 but deprived of his victory under international pressure, was ousted from Gaza the Palestinian Authority and its security forces, at the cost of virtual civil war with Fatah in 2007 .

The Authority, dominated by Fatah, no longer exerts its power, limited, on the West Bank, occupied by Israel and Gaza distant from a few tens of kilometers.

All attempts at reconciliation have failed since 2007, including one that had resulted in an agreement in 2011 in Cairo.

Isolated, facing the risk of social explosion but also to a diminished support from Qatar, Hamas, also subject to the pressures of the great Egyptian neighbor finally agreed in September to return to Gaza from the Authority and its government.

The reconciliation was materialized in style last week with the first cabinet standing in Gaza since 2014.

Hamas and Fatah engaged in Cairo on Tuesday for negotiations shrouded in secrecy on the practical modalities of reconciliation.

Double challenge

Questions as complicated as control of security in Gaza and the fate of the 25,000 men of the armed wing of Hamas were expected to be postponed.

The challenge of reconciliation, considerable, is twofold. The most immediate is the fate of two million Gazans tried by three wars with Israel since 2008, the Israeli and Egyptian blockade, poverty, unemployment, and water and electricity shortages.

In addition, Palestinian divisions are seen as a major obstacle to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The legitimacy of President Abbas, Israel and interlocutor of the international community, is undermined by the fact that Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the US or the European Union and as a pariah by many Arab countries, currently chairs the destinies of two-fifths of the Palestinian Territories.

Hamas expects the lifting of the financial measures taken by President Abbas to deflect as termination of the payment of the electricity bill of Gaza to Israel. “We will come back over when the government will be able to assume its responsibilities,” said Abbas last week.

Referring to the possibility that Hamas remains in charge of security in Gaza, Abbas also warned he would not accept “we clone the experience of Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

Hamas has meant in turn that the issue of its weapons was not negotiable.

The parties must also resolve the fate of tens of thousands of civil servants recruited since 2007 by Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that his country would agree to deal with government on behalf of all the Palestinian factions that if Hamas dismantles its military arm, broke with Iran and recognizes Israel. A priori conditions impossible to meet for Hamas.