Security coordination between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel is in jeopardy, because responsibility for security matters in the PA will be taken up by a committee that includes Hamas.
Maariv/NRG reports Monday that Mustafa Bargouti, a member of the committee that coordinates the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, told it that in the new unity government, security issues will no longer be under the purview of the minister for internal affairs. Instead, they will be controlled by the intended prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, and a joint Fatah-Hamas security committee will determine the PA's policies on security in the territory under its control in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Hamas's involvement in the PA's security mechanism could throw a spanner in the works of Israel-PA security coordination, notes Maariv/NRG. “In the course of talks about the establishment of the unity government, the Palestinian factions in Gaza raised the matter of security,” Bargouti explained. “The compromise, in the form of the security committee, is meant to allow Hamas to continue to control Gaza's security.”
Bargouti also said that agreement had been reached regarding the continued tenure of the PA's foreign minister, Riad al-Maliki. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum had spoken against Maliki, because he had cooperated with the “Jewish” judge Richard Goldstone on his report against Israel, and because of some anti-Hamas comments by Maliki.