National Unity Palestinian Style

Captains Quarters says that according to an MSNBC banner flashing across his screen, the Palestinians will recognize Israel.

Surprisingly we have the Palestinians very own Mahmoud Abbas who says the Palestinians will recognize Israel.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly Thursday that the planned national unity government will recognize Israel.

The Hamas-led Palestinian government that won elections in January has refused to recognize Israel, end violence, and honor past agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Abbas heads.

Abbas told the assembly’s annual ministerial meeting that he has recently sought to establish a government of national unity “that is consistent with international and Arab legitimacy and that responds to the demands of the key parties promoting Mideast peace -- recognition, ending violence and honoring past agreements.

“I would like to reaffirm that any future Palestinian government will commit to all the agreements that the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Authority have committed to,” he said.

On the other hand Hamas' very own Ismail Haniyeh the Palestinian Prime Minister says something else.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh reiterated his opposition to recognizing Israel's right to exist and halting terrorism on Wednesday, but the comments were not enough to deter Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from his intention to meet in the near future with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

As Abbas was meeting with US President George W. Bush in New York on Wednesday, Haniyeh addressed supporters in Gaza City, saying the Hamas-led government would not accept the conditions set by America and the rest of the Quartet for resuming financial aid to the Palestinians.

It doesn't look to me like there will be any Palestinian national unity government any time soon. They are lacking the main ingrediant. National unity.

This is all about resumption of aid. No aid. No graft.

Abbas must be getting pretty desperate because he has been peddling the national unity line for months to no effect.

Let me add that the lack of cash is causing serious political problems for Hamas.

There appears to be a change in the Palestinian political balance of power: A survey conducted by the an-Najah National University in Nablus, published Sunday evening [17 Sept ed.], shows that if Palestinian elections were to take place today, the Fatah movement would solidly defeat Hamas.

Of 1,360 Palestinians polled, 38 percent would support a Fatah candidate in a theoretical presidential election, compared to 17.4 percent who would vote for a Hamas candidate.

Fatah would also sweep the board in general elections, with 35 percent of those polled indicating that they would vote for Fatah compared to only 20 percent would vote for Hamas.

This is a significant flip from the situation a year and a half ago, when Hamas beat Fatah by almost a 2:1 ratio in the January 2006 elections.

Nonetheless, 59 percent of Palestinians polled stated that advancing the elections would be tantamount to a political revolution against the Hamas government, as opposed to 33.3 percent who disagreed.

48 percent of those asked stated that the solution to the lack of salaries for government workers is the disbandment of the current government, while 25 percent believe that the workers need to accept the situation and return to work.

Governments that ruin economies get to be very unpopular over time. Which pretty much says that there is no future in National Unity Palestinian Style.

Update: 22 Sept '06 0305z

I'm not the only one who thinks Abbas has something to sell.

During the meeting with Bush, Abbas was expected to “market” the new Palestinian unity government as a leadership that would recognize prior international decisions and would conform to Arab peace initiatives that recognize Israel.

I'd say the goods were getting a little shopworn.