Palestinian reconciliation pact may be on hold again
* Hamas wants rethink on planned reconciliation meeting
* Fatah in disarray after delaying UN war crimes report
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA, Oct 8 ( Reuters) - Palestinians of the Islamist Hamas faction ruling the Gaza Strip have asked Egypt to postpone a meeting with their rivals of the Western-backed Fatah movement at which they were expected to sign a reconciliation pact.
It was supposed to take place in Cairo on Oct 24-26, with a signing ceremony to cap over a year-long diplomatic slog by Egyptian mediators working to close the debilitating split in the ranks of the Palestinian national movement.
"Hamas told Egypt that the popular shock caused by the Palestinian Authority's delaying of the vote on the Goldstone report was a blow to their efforts and sabotaged the atmosphere for such an event," a Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters in Gaza.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader, is under political fire from Palestinians for agreeing last Friday to shelve a United Nations war crimes report by judge Richard Goldstone criticising Israel's Gaza offensive.
An angry crowd in Gaza threw shoes at his defaced portrait on Wednesday and called him a traitor. But Fatah loyalists accused Hamas of cynically fanning popular feeling against its top political opponent.
HAMAS UP, FATAH DOWN
Fatah is now struggling to correct what aides to Abbas have admitted was a diplomatic mistake. The president has promised an address to the nation to explain what went wrong and official sources have hinted that heads may roll.
Hamas by contrast is enjoying a wave of popularity for securing the release of 20 female prisoners from Israel last week in return for a video showing that the Israeli soldier it has held captive for three years is alive and well.
Although the meeting in Cairo was not expected to immediately heal political rifts, it would outline steps to restoring unity between Abbas's Fatah movement, which dominates the West Bank, and Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers.
"The problem is not in the Egyptian paper (for reconciliation), the problem is in the shameful Fatah position over the Goldstone report," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on Wednesday.
Gaza-born senior Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan, who is now based in the West Bank, accused Hamas of exploiting the Goldstone case "to destroy the Palestinian political system and to destroy Palestinian legitimacy through attacking Abu Mazen (Abbas)."
"We, in Fatah, have admitted that postponing the vote was a mistake. But the question is to rectify this, and it's not through accusations of treason," Dahlan told Reuters.
Abu Zuhri said Dahlan's comments proved Fatah was entirely to blame over the delaying of the vote on the U.N. report.
"We do not call it a mistake. We call it a deliberate acquittal of the (Israeli) occupation for war crimes they committed," Abu Zuhri said.
Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah
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