Gaza Update (3 January): Getting Fatah Back In

Update: An Israeli bomb has killed nine and wounded at least 60 in a mosque in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. According to CNN, "leaflets signed by the commander of the Israeli military were dropped over northern Gaza on Saturday morning, warning residents to 'leave the area immediately' to ensure their safety".

So, a week into the Israeli attack on Gaza, we finally get the political gameplan, courtesy of President Bush: "I urge all parties...to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace."

"Legitimate Palestinian leaders" means the Fatah Party, which is the dominant Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. But how do you get Fatah back in, when they were rejected --- both politically and militarily --- from Gaza over the last years? Amidst a lull in most media coverage, the answer comes from McClatchy News Services:

Israel, Arab countries and the United States are discussing how to create an international force that would safeguard an eventual cease-fire, diplomats said Friday. A key part of the arrangement is that the main Palestinian rival to the ruling Hamas party would be asked to take charge of border crossings.

Thus the other key sentence in Bush's statement, to be broadcast on Saturday, "There must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end."

In fact, that's been part of the American and possibly the Israeli strategy from the start of operations: topple Hamas, with whom you won't negotiate, and install Fatah/the Palestinian Authority, with whom you will. CNN television's carefully-orchestrated interviews with experts such as Jon Alterman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, were playing this out last weekend.

On the surface, putting Fatah/PA in would satisfy not only Washington and Tel Aviv but most Arab countries, who prefer to back PA leader Mahmoud Abbas rather than Hamas. Only one problem: where is the support for Fatah, which was discredited by charges of inefficiency, corruption, and a failure to provide public services even before Hamas beat them at the Gaza polls in 2006? McClatchy concludes:

While there's Arab and Western support for Abbas' U.S.-backed security forces taking control of the crossings, it isn't clear how that could be carried out. U.S. officials acknowledge that there's little chance that the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, could reassume political power in the Gaza Strip anytime soon.

I think it's safe to say that the Hamas leadership in Gaza won't be accepting any proposal for Fatah security forces on the borders. So, if they maintain their support amongst the Gazan population, the question is thrown back to Israel and its supporters in Washington.

Do they accept another cease-fire proposal based not on the political goal of getting Fatah in but on an "international monitoring force"? Or does Israel play its last military card and send the ground troops across the border?