Hamas and Fatah power deal 'key to Mid-East peace'

Fatah and Hamas have to negotiate a new power-sharing arrangement for there to be a Palestinian-Israeli peace, the International Crisis Group independent think-tank said yesterday.

The Arab states and other third parties, it suggested, should mediate between Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip two months ago. Robert Malley, a former White House adviser who directs the ICG's Middle East programme, said that if a new unity government emerged, "the rest of the world must do what it should have done before: accept it".

The ICG challenged the optimistic assumption of George Bush and Tony Blair, that President Mahmoud Abbas can make peace with Israel and that besieging Gaza will discredit Hamas.

But the ICG proposals were greeted with Palestinian scepticism and Israeli rejection. Ghassan Khatib, a West Bank political scientist and former independent minister, said: "The two sides are not yet ripe for partnership. Hamas seems interested in complete control or domination. Fatah is unable to live with such arrangements... I don't see this being reversed in the foreseeable future."

Mark Regev, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Everyone understands we're moving finally in the right direction. The resumption of national unity on the Palestinian side would immediately stop the process from moving."

The ICG report said the most promising course was for Fatah and Hamas "to cease hostile action... and begin to reverse steps entrenching separation between Gaza and the West Bank and undermining democratic institutions" and seek a power-sharing arrangement based on the 2002 Arab peace initiative.