Introduction

The January 2006 Palestinian elections were expected to stabilize highly negative domestic dynamics and bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Instead, Hamas, the Islamist group, won 44% of the national vote and 56% of the seats of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to the nationalist Fatah’s 41% of the national vote but only 36% of the seats. One of the immediate consequences of the elections has been further deterioration in internal Palestinian conditions and the collapse of any hopes for immediate resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Concern grew over the potential for major internal violence and for a resumption of open warfare between Palestinians and Israelis. Indeed, the year 2006 witnessed a significant increase in Israeli-Palestinian violence despite the agreement in December on a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Similarly, intra-Palestinian violence threatened to escalate into civil war in the Gaza Strip despite the continued efforts of Fatah and Hamas to put together a national unity government. While these efforts seem to have failed in 2006, leading Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas to threaten in mid-December to hold early elections, it remains unclear what impact a national unity government would have on domestic conditions or on the chances for a resumption of the peace process.

Have Palestinian domestic developments in 2006 shattered the chances of reviving the stagnated political process between Israelis and Palestinians? Will the formation of a Palestinian national unity government make any difference, or will the logic of domestic rivalry and the dynamics of violent escalation prevail, leading to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA), civil war, and the end of the peace process? Is there room in this environment for possible Palestinian-Israeli stabilization-or even for an agreement that might restore some confidence in the peace process?

In trying to answer these questions, this paper will also seek to explore other issues. Was it a mistake for the Palestinians to proceed to elections without first putting an end to violence and anarchy? What went wrong and led to Hamas’s electoral victory? Why was the policy of isolating Hamas adopted by the U.S. and the international community, and has that policy succeeded? What factors make internal Palestinian violence and a wider Israeli-Palestinian confrontation more likely? Which might lead to internal unity and Palestinian-Israeli stabilization?

This paper gives primacy to domestic developments in explaining possible future directions in Palestinian-Israeli relations. It particular, it examines the impact of Palestinian domestic developments on the various possible options with respect to the peace process. Among these are an agreement on an extended cessation of violence, a negotiated Israeli “disengagement” in the West Bank, the establishment of a Palestinian state with no provision for an “end of conflict,” and a permanent peace including agreement on an “end of conflict.”1 Needless to say, however, even if domestic Palestinian conditions were to become ideal, developments in Israel alone could prevent any conceivable progress.

A PDF of the entire article can be accessed through the following link:

http://www.brandeis.edu/centers/crown/publications/WP/WP1.pdf

Shikaki is a Senior Fellow at the Crown Center and Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. He has conducted over 100 polls among Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza since 1993.