Abbas gambles

Finally, after five months, Pres. Abbas of the PA gave up on negotiations with Hamas and declared in a speech on Saturday that he will organize new elections for both President and Parliament. However, he stopped short of dismissing the current Hamas Government and giving a specific date for these supposed elections. Nevertheless, it had the effect of bringing Hamas out into the open and escalating the violence in the PA. The Hamas spokesman accused Abbas of making a coup attempt against the legally elected Government. There were several violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas gunmen in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank leading to four dead and scores of injured.
In one case Hamas attacked a training camp adjacent to Abbas' office in Gaza and killed two Fatah gunmen. They also fired four mortar shells at his office. In another case the motorcade of Hamas FM as-Sanah was attacked in Gaza, although he escaped unhurt. Many commentators have concluded that a civil war is currently underway between Fatah and Hamas in the PA. This is part of the overall clash between the extremist forces supported by Iran and the "moderate" Sunni forces in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq.
However, last night a ceasefire was announced in the PA covering all groups, including Islamic Jihad. They agreed to withdraw all armed men from the streets and to release all captives. It was agreed that in place of any clashes, negotiations should continue for a unity government, but this is definitely not a realistic possibility. Meanwhile polls show that the Palestinian population is evenly split between support for Abbas/Fatah and Haniyeh/Hamas.
There are currently three consequences of the current violence:
1. There is an increasing schism between Gaza and the West Bank, because Gaza is more pro-Hamas and the WB more pro-Fatah. So far there is no formal political separation between them, but increasingly Hamas sees Gaza as its power base and Abbas, who sits in Ramallah, sees the WB as his. There is relatively little connection between these two areas, since due to the anti-Israel violence, including the continuing firing of Kassam shells into Israel, the Israeli Givernment has closed all road/rail links between Gaza and the WB. Whether or not in time this separation will become insititutionalized remains unknown.
2. There is a difference of opinion in Israel between those who think that it is a good thing that Palestinian thugs kill each other rather than Israelis, and those who believe that the terrorist groups will compete more feverishly with each other to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel to prove their dedication to the Palestinian cause. This too remains to be seen, but seen as a zero-sum game, a dead terrorist is a dead terrorist!
3. The surrounding "moderate" Sunni Arabs States, especially Lebanon and Jordan, are afraid of the violence spilling over into the Palestinian camps on their territories, where there are factions that support both Fatah and Hamas. In a larger perspective such splintering can be seen as part of the overall clash within the Arab/Muslim world between the extremist Shia/Sunni alliance (lead by Iran and including al Qaeda) and the more pro-Western moderate Sunnis (including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc.).
It might be concluded that whenever the Palestinians are unable to make headway in their attacks against Israel, due to the Security fence and improved IDF security, they quite naturally turn on each other. This has happened in the past and is likely to escalate until they come to an agreemente or one side or the other scores a victory. Then they will they renew their campaign against Israel, trying once again to do what they have failed to do in the past.