Can Hamas come in from the cold?

By Alan Johnston
BBC News, Gaza City

Haniya is one of the few who can feel secure in his post

In meeting after meeting in Gaza City in the days to come, the shape of the new Palestinian government of national unity ought to take shape.

This is the hard business of factional manoeuvring and deal making - deciding which parties and individuals will get which cabinet posts.

The prime minister of the current, Hamas-controlled, government, Ismail Haniya, will keep his job.

But beyond that, nothing is certain.

The speculation is that Hamas will take the largest number of posts in deference to its parliamentary majority.

If it gets seven or eight ministries, then perhaps the Fatah faction will get four or five, and the rest would be shared out between smaller parties, independent members of parliament and technocrats.

Desire for change

Hamas and Fatah are the most bitter of rivals. Relations are so bad that they sometimes spill over into violence in Gaza's streets. And this government of national unity will not be an easy political cohabitation.

But there is a desperate desire here to see the two parties to put their differences aside now.

"I'm calling on Hamas and Fatah to look to the needs of the people," said Abu Uday, a young, unemployed tailor in the Shaateh refugee camp, near Gaza City's waterfront.

"We want them to work together, not take revenge on one another. People are being killed and the economy is being destroyed by these confrontations between the factions."

And there is a sense here of some faint hope that by forming a coalition government the Palestinian camp might manage to be a little more united in future as it addresses the Israeli occupation and other major challenges.

Hamas still refuses to recognise Israel or to renounce violence

But whether Palestinians like it or not, the success or failure of the new administration is likely to depend on how its agenda is received in West.

The current, Hamas-controlled, government has been broken by an economic embargo imposed by the Israelis, the US and the European Union.

Together they managed to stop almost all funds reaching the administration on account of its refusal to renounce violence and accept Israel's right to exist.

Palestinians hope that the formation of a new, more moderate, coalition government will end their diplomatic and economic isolation.

But that is not guaranteed.

US assessment

The new government's programme is to be based largely on an 18-point national political agenda - known as the "Prisoners' Document" because it was drawn up by Palestinians being held in Israeli jails.

Although the document implies acceptance of Israel's right to exist, it falls short of the explicit recognition demanded by the West.

It is a little early to judge. The government has not even been put together yet - never mind had a chance to spell out its programme in detail.

Palestinians hope a unity government can ease the isolation

But the Western camp may well be split over whether the stance of the new administration warrants an end to the economic embargo and diplomatic re-engagement.

Of course the Israelis can be expected to take the hardest line, and it seems they will be backed by the US.

The US Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David Welch, said Washington would look closely at the new government's programme.

But he added: "To the extent that we understand it so far, it does not meet the standard."

However the new coalition's agenda may receive a much more positive reception from at least some European Union members.

They may argue that the Prisoner's Document makes clear that the new government is ready to work to establish a Palestinian state that would live alongside Israel.

Rising anger

Any European willingness to compromise will be driven by an awareness of how dire things have become in the Palestinian Territories, and in Gaza in particular.

The Israeli and Western sanctions are wrecking what was anyway a very weak economy.

The flow of funds that the Palestinian Authority relied on has been cut off. Civil servants have been paid virtually nothing for six months - and this great swathe of the middle class has been plunged into poverty.

The Palestinian economy has been decimated by the funding freeze

For many in Gaza the hard grind of daily life is tougher now than ever - and the rising levels of anger and despair may play into the hands of more radical elements.

But the breakthrough in the efforts to form a national unity government have raised hopes among Palestinians that things just may be about to get a little better.

And the mood has been further improved by the prospect of the freeing of 18 of the Hamas cabinet members and other political figures who were seized by the Israeli military in recent months.

They were charged with membership of a terrorist organisation, but a military court judge has ordered that they be freed - although the prosecution is appealing the decision.

The judge said that the fact that the Israeli authorities had allowed the defendants to participate in elections suggested that they did not pose a danger sufficient enough to warrant arrest.

The seizure of almost the whole of Hamas's political leadership in the West Bank came in the aftermath of the group's capture of an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, on Gaza's border in late June.

The West Bank detentions were widely seen as a move by Israel to gain "bargaining chips" in its effort to secure the soldier's release.

But Cpl Shalit remains in the hands of militants who are demanding - in return for his freedom - the release of some of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Nobody doubts that the Egyptians and perhaps others are negotiating behind the scenes in an effort to bring the affair to an end.

And the press is frequently swept by reports that a deal is imminent, but so far they have always come to nothing.