Palestinian leftist party offers plan to end internal divisions

Wednesday September 03, 2008 10:28 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

As tensions remain high in Gaza between the two major Palestinian parties, Fateh and Hamas, the leftist Palestinian party, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, offers to intervene and help resolve the conflict.

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The DFLP Secretary-General Nayif Hawatmah presented a proposal in a meeting with Egyptian Minister Omar Suleiman, who is currently responsible and engaged in talks with Palestinian factions to try resolve the internal crisis.

The current crisis between the rival Palestinian parties began in 2006 after Hamas was democratically elected to lead the Palestinian caretaker government, which had been subject to the martial law of the Israeli military occupation that rules in the Palestinian Territories. Since Israel refused to recognize the Hamas government after it was elected, Israeli and US authorities began to pressure the democratically-elected government by imposing siege warfare on the population of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Simultaneously, Israeli and US authorities were funding and supporting the rival Fateh party as well as propping its leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), which the two powers consider more pliant and easy to control than Hamas.

The DFLP plan stipulates the implementation of an interim Palestinian government made up of figures independent of the two major parties, whose role it would be to set up a new election. In addition, prisoners taken by both sides would be released, and both Fateh and Hamas would agree to end their campaigns of incitement against the other

To assist in that process, a National Committee would be formed to monitor the release of prisoners and ensure that incitement does not continue.

Egyptian mediators have been holding talks for the last week between the rival Palestinian factions, and hope to begin a national dialogue to end the current rift.

palestine | internal unrest | news report saed at imemc dot org