In recent months the poor Palestinians have, not for the first time, found themselves used as the rope in the tug-of-war between the Middle East's "accommodationist" and "rejectionist" governments. As the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority (PA) totters under the dual pressures of an international economic boycott and increasingly violent clashes with Fatah, its rival, there have been ever more frantic attempts to get the two parties to agree to a unity government that would meet the world's three conditions for lifting the boycott-recognising Israel, renouncing violence and honouring PA-Israel agreements. These attempts have been led by Qatar and Egypt. Pulling the other way have been Hamas's backers, Syria (where Hamas's supreme leader, Khaled Meshal, resides) and Iran.
展开▼
