Gaza entrenches divides in Palestinian politics

By Wafa Amr

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Violence in Gaza and the dismissal of the government by President Mahmoud Abbas has entrenched divisions between the two main Palestinian political groups and forced smaller factions to take sides.

But the schism between the Gaza Strip, now run by Hamas Islamists, and the larger West Bank dominated by Abbas's secular Fatah movement may also reinforce disillusion among Palestinians with their fractious leaders, analysts said on Monday.

An opinion poll conducted by Near East Consulting after Abbas named a new, emergency government following Hamas's rout of his Fatah forces in Gaza, concluded that one Palestinian in three supported Fatah and about half that number favored Hamas -- while 43 percent of respondents trusted neither major party.

Among the many smaller groups in a political galaxy left fragmented by decades of underground combat and occupation, most of the secular factions have condemned Hamas. Many of these are, like Fatah, members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which, like Fatah, is headed by Abbas.

Other small groups, both Islamist and secular, have taken a different tack. Islamic Jihad and the Marxist, Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) condemned last week's violence but refrained from openly backing Abbas's establishment of an emergency government.

But the leaders of most of the PLO's leftist factions have sided with Fatah in demanding a boycott of any talks with Hamas until senior leader Ismail Haniyeh accepts that he has been fired as prime minister and ends Hamas's armed control in Gaza.

"Hamas is facing a big problem now and is isolated by other political groups," said political analyst Abdel-Majid Sweilem, adding he believed Hamas had "miscalculated" if it believed seizing control of Gaza would increase its negotiating power.

Hamas insists it merely defended itself and said Abbas's firing of the government was a "coup": Yahya Moussa, a senior Hamas official, said: "The president's moves were illegal."

But Fatah leaders reject dialogue for now: "They are in a quagmire. This is not a victory for them," said senior Fatah official Qadoura Fares, betraying the anger still simmering.

"How can we talk to them when they're killing and looting?"

HARDENING DIVIDE

Underlining how far the rift has widened between Hamas and Fatah, five months after they agreed at Mecca to form their short-lived unity government under Haniyeh, one of the chief Fatah advocates of reconciliation strongly condemned Hamas.

Marwan Barghouthi, who rose to prominence in the Palestinian uprising of 2000 and has remained a powerful figure in Fatah's younger generation since being jailed by Israel in 2002, issued a call from prison for Haniyeh to stop insisting he is prime minister and described Hamas's takeover in Gaza as a coup.

"From my small dark cell I tell our people: 'I consider the military coup in Gaza a dangerous threat to the unity of the homeland and a threat to the Palestinian cause ... I fully support the decision to form a new Palestinian government."

Some of the rivalry between the two movements reflects a struggle for power and patronage among the four million people in Gaza and the West Bank. They also have divergent histories.