GAZA (Middle East Eye) – Foreign powers should revise the conditions that have prevented the Palestinian resistance group Hamas from participating in a unity government, the International Crisis Group (ICG) and the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP) said in a report.
The report, part of a joint initiative between the ICG and USMEP to help resolve the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, urged international powers to revise the conditions imposed on Hamas by the U.S., UN, EU and Russia (the so-called Quartet), including the recognition of the Zionist regime, renouncing violence and accepting all past agreements between the Zionist regime and the Palestinians.
The report comes in the wake of eleven days of hostilities between the occupying regime and the Palestinians in April-May.
The escalation took place in East Al-Quds, the occupied West Bank, mixed towns, and in Gaza, where the occupying regime’s bombardment killed over 250 civilians.
“Western politicians may be loath to change tack now that Hamas has grown stronger in the wake of the April-May crisis,” the ICG-USMEP report said.
“But the current policy is inherently misguided and has long since scored an own goal: empowering Hamas while obstructing the Palestinian reconciliation and political renewal that international actors claim they support.”
In addition to pressing for a long-term ceasefire in Gaza, a return to the status quo in Al-Aqsa compound, and a halt to eviction orders in East Al-Quds, the report also called on foreign powers to support Palestinian elections “under the freest and fairest conditions attainable, including with East Al-Quds Palestinians’ participation”.
It pointed out that dividing the Palestinian people “will lead to neither peace nor surrender.”