Like a bolt out of the blue, the Fa­tah-Hamas reconciliation agreement, secretly brokered by the new government in Egypt last month, took Is­rael by surprise.

Hav­ing watched the implosion of a series of  Pa­lestinian attempts to forge unity, Israel assumed that the Pa­lestinians would remain hopelessly di­vided. Israel was shocked and angered when the rival Palestinian factions finally signed an accord. The Pa­lestinians were influenced by protesters calling for unity, re­volts in the Arab world and the collapse of peace talks with the Is­raeli government last September. Prime Minister Benjamin Netan­yahu, after  warning the Pa­lestinian Authority to choose bet­ween “peace with Is­rael [or] peace with Ha­mas,” suspended the trans­fer of almost $90 million worth of tax revenues to the PA.

With this pact in hand, the Pa­les­tinians, after a period of sustained acrimony, stand on the cusp of form­ing their sec­ond unity government in five years.  

Denounced by Netanyahu as “a great victory for terrorism” but hailed by PA President Mah­­moud Abbas as the end of a “black” chapter in Palestinian history, the pact is still largely a work in progress, with key details yet to be iron­ed out, as Abbas said last week.

Given their tactical and strategic differences, the Fatah-Hamas agreement may yet blow up, suggested the outgoing director of the Israel Security Agency, Yuval Diskin, who retired on May 15. Claiming that the chances for “real reconciliation” between the rivals were “slim,” Diskin no­ted that the agreement, while creating “a facade of unity,”  has yet to be implemented on the ground. Considering the fragmented nature of Palestinian politics, Dis­kin’s analysis may be prescient.

Perpetually riven by intrigue and dissension, the Palestinian political scene was thrown into disarray in January 2006 when Ha­mas, in an astonishing upset, de­­feated Fatah in legislative elections. Prod­ded by Sau­di Arabia and encouraged by Egypt, Fatah and Hamas negotiated the Mecca accord and form­ed a coalition government. Fatah continued to govern the West Bank, partially occupied by Israel, while Hamas administered the Gaza Strip, which Israel unilaterally evacuated in the summer of  2005.

Fatah’s partnership with Hamas was short-lived, collapsing in a wel­­ter of violence in 2007 as Ha­mas staged a coup and ejected Fatah forces from Gaza.

Even if this mini civil war had not occurred, Fatah’s union with Hamas seemed doomed.  While Fatah, a secular organization dependent on wes­t­­ern aid, embraced a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 armistice lines, Ha­mas, an Islamic fundamentalist group backed politically, financially and militarily by Iran and Syria, remained steadfastly committed to Israel’s destruction.

In accordance with its national char­ter, Hamas, branded as a terrorist group by the United States, Canada and other western nations, rejected the Quartet’s conditions for recognition.

The Quartet – the Uni­ted States, the United Na­tions, the European Union and Rus­sia ­– demanded that Ha­mas recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and accept all agreements previously entered into by Is­rael and the Palestinian Authority.

With Hamas refusing to budge from its recalcitrant position, the Quartet boycotted Hamas and Israel refused to deal with the Palestinian coalition government.

Now that Fatah and Hamas appear to have reconciled, we appear to be back to square one.

The Fatah/Hamas agreement is clear on only two points.  

A new interim government, made up of in­depen­dent technocrats from both sides, will be created. Parliamentary and presidential elections will take place with­in a year.

In the mean­time, Fatah and Ha­mas will continue to rule the West Bank and Gaza respectively.

In essence, the agree­ment is long on rhetoric and short on answers.

First and foremost, observers wonder who will be chosen as the prime minister of a united Palestinian government. The Fatah representative who negotiated the accord, Azzam al-Ahmad, has said that Salam Fay­yad, the current prime minister of the West Bank auton­omous areas, will not serve in the transitional government. Who will replace Fayyad? Certainly not Ismail Haniyeh, the current prime minister of the Hamas regime in Gaza.

Negotiators will have to grapple with a host of other unresolved issues, the most important of which is whether Fatah and Hamas will merge their police forces.

At present, Israel and the Pa­lestinian Authority engage in security co-operation, which has helped keep terrorism in check. But if Fatah and Ha­mas amalgamate their for­ces, Israel will most likely cancel its arrange­ments with Fatah.

Another unanswered question concerns the future membership of the Pa­lestine Liberation Organization, a major decision-making body.

Until now, Ha­mas has been excluded from the PLO.  But if Fatah allows Hamas to join the PLO, the Palestinian leadership will sur­ely undergo drastic change, with im­mense ramifications on the Arab-Israeli peace pro­cess, such as it is.

The two sides will also have to discuss how best to confront Israel should there be no peace talks in the near future

Hamas, meanwhile, remains ex­treme and uncompromising in its outlook.

“The presence of the Zionist entity on our land is illegal, and it is impossible to recognize it,” said Haniyeh recently. “We will not recognize Israel,” declared Mah­moud al-Zahar, a leading Hamas figure. “That mat­ter is settled.”

The Hamas official who signed the uni­ty agreement, Khaled Meshal – the object of an Israeli assassination at­tempt in the 1990s – has spelled out his objectives.

As he put it, “Our aim is to establish a free and completely sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, whose capital is Jerusalem, without any [Jewish] settlers, with­out giv­ing up a single inch of land and with­out giving up on the right of return [of Palestinian refugees].”

In separate comments, he refused to disavow vi­olence or to pledge that a peace trea­ty would mean the end to all Pa­lestinian claims on Israel. On May 10, he imposed a one-year deadline on Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.

Last week, in an effort to allay fears that Hamas’ inclusion in a Palestinian government would undermine the pros­pects for peace, Abbas  reiterated his opposition to terrorism and violence and asserted that he will be responsible for handling peace talks with Israel.

Peace negotiations broke down last autumn after Israel refused to renew the  partial settlement moratorium in the West Bank.

In its pre­sent form, the Fatah-Hamas agreement looms like another obstacle in the search for peace.