Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas met Saturday in Ramallah with heads of Hamas in Judea and Samaria for the first time since last year. The meeting was “highly positive,” said Hamas legislator Aziz Dweik.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a CNN interview recently that it is not possible to be for peace with Israel and peace with Hamas that calls for Israel's destruction. Unity with Hamas may bring an end to any vestiges of the peace process and to Israel's cooperation with the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas and the Hamas leaders discussed the possibility of Hamas-Fatah unity following four years of rivalry after Hamas took over Gaza and split off from areas of Judea and Samaria controlled by Fatah.
Previous talks between the groups have failed. However, leaders returned to the table after an estimated 100,000 people in Gaza, and tens of thousands in Judea and Samaria, began protesting in favor of a return to joint Hamas-Fatah rule of the PA. The protests followed a wave of demonstrations that have toppled regimes in the Arab world.
Abbas stressed in Saturday's meeting that he is not seeking a deal that would permanently reunite the two groups as joint leaders of the PA, as they were in 2006 and 2007. Instead, he said, he hopes for a temporary union that will allow national elections to take place with Gaza residents able to participate.
PA elections have been repeatedly postponed due to the Hamas-Fatah rift, leaving Abbas in office despite the fact that his term ended in 2009.
The rift has allowed Abbas to continue receiving international aid. Many countries refuse to give aid to Hamas, which is widely recognized as a terrorist group, but will assist Fatah, which has largely been removed from terror lists due to its leaders' willingness to meet with Israel.
Abbas has said that he hopes to visit Gaza to meet with Hamas leaders there and sign a deal. While Hamas leaders in Judea and Samaria have met with Abbas, it is the group's leaders in Gaza and Syria who will decide whether or not to sign.