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Gaza City, Palestinian Territory (TML) – Like their counterparts throughout the Arab world, Palestinians have fixed a date for mass popular protests. But while most opposition movements are demanding the ouster of autocratic rulers and democratic reforms, Palestinians are focused on bringing together their warring leadership.

Through Facebook and other social media, Palestinians in the street are calling for “ending the split” between Fatah and Hamas, the two rival factions governing the West Bank and Gaza Strip, respectively. As of Sunday, over 11,000 Palestinians showed their backing for a rally planned for March 15 to “end the divide” by “liking” the page.

The two Palestinian areas have been politically divided since Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, ending a brief national unity government. Reconciliation talks in Egypt and Syria have failed to reconcile differences. While both sides want a Palestinians state, Fatah wants to achieve it through negotiations while Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction. In the meantime, they run parallel governments.

“This happens only in Palestine,” wrote the anonymous administrator of the Facebook page. “Two Health Ministries and no health; two Social Affairs Ministries and half the population lives under the poverty line; two Finance Ministries and we live on foreign aid … O divided parties, prepare for national unity before your credit runs out. Time is short.”

The focus on unity is an odd twist amid the unrest roiling the Middle East. But it would complicate diplomacy for Israel and the West, which refuse to recognize Hamas, an Islamist organization, until it recognizes the agreements the Palestinians have reached with Israel and forswears violence. The Fatah-controlled PA received substantial Western aid that would be shared with Hamas.

But Samir Zaqout, field work coordinator at Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, estimated that about 1.5 million people supported the on-line campaign, amounting to 75-80% of whom are Palestinian.

“If these people make their presence shown on March 15, that will be very significant,” Zaqout told The Media Line.

Among Palestinian leaders, unity is less popular. A peaceful demonstration calling for national unity was violently crushed by Hamas’ security apparatus on February 28. Only 20 Gazans had the courage to heed the on-line call to join a “national campaign” and arrived at Gaza’s Square of the Unknown Soldier. Campaign organizer Ahmad Atawnah was beaten and then arrested by Hamas police.

Over the weekend, however, the mounting popular pressure seems to have influenced Hamas. On Friday, the Hamas government launched its own demonstrations calling, among other things, for an end to the divide. Yousef Rezqa, a political adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told the Maan News Agency that his government would present a new initiative within days to end the divide, including a cabinet reshuffle.

On Friday, a group of Hamas prisoners held in Israeli jails issued a statement outlining Hamas’ conditions for reconciliation. It stated that Hamas was interested in unity more than anyone else, but this could only be achieved after the PA halts its security cooperation with Israel, releases all political prisoners and includes Hamas elements in the national security apparatus. Elections, the statement added, can only take place two years from now, after parliament has convened and an election committee is re-established.

But Nashat Aqtash, a media professor at Ramallah’s Bir-Zeit University, said he is skeptical about the prospects of reconciliation.

“There’s no way reconciliation will take place,” Aqtash told The Media Line. “Both Fatah and Hamas are both more focused on their personal agendas than on the national interest.”

On February 21,Salam Fayyad, who is prime minister in the Fatah-controlled PA, proposed including Hamas in a unity government, under which the Islamist group would be allowed to maintain security responsibility in Gaza. Fayyad said that if Hamas continued to maintain its ceasefire with Israel, a unity government could be formed, with security details hashed out later.

Hamas, however, refused to join Fayyad’s interim government ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections set for later this year.

“I doubt Hamas’ plan will be more creative than the one outlined by Fayyad,” Aqtash said. “In any case, Fatah will never accept it.”

Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, said Hamas’ planned initiative was more an attempt to buy time in the face of rising public criticism than an honest effort to end the political divide.

“Most Palestinians believe Hamas is at fault for the divide,” Abusada told The Media Line. “So, Hamas wants to buy more time by putting the ball in the court of Fayyad and Abbas.”

Abusada said Hamas was likely to accept a unity government based on the Mecca declaration from February 2007, which laid the ground for the first unity government between Fatah and Hamas, but fell apart only three months later with Hamas’ coup in the Gaza Strip.

“The declaration stipulates that the prime minister of the unity government will belong to Hamas, and the interior minister will be an independent agreed on by both sides,” Abusada said. He added that Hamas isn’t likely to accept the three conditions set forward by the Quartet – the U.S., European Union, Russia and United Nations – which calls for recognizing of Israel, renouncing terrorism and acceptance of all previous agreements signed by the PLO and Israel.

Ahamd Yousef, Hamas’ deputy foreign minister, declined the Media Line’s request to comment on the new plan, saying it was initiated by Hamas movement members and wasn’t a government initiative.

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