A Qatari source conveyed to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that Hamas has agreed to form a technocratic government in Gaza after the war, according to a Tuesday report from Sky News Arabia citing a Palestinian source in Ramallah.
On Sunday, the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Abbas was set to discuss a new Palestinian unity government with the Qatari Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
According to the report, Hamas has shown initial acceptance of the idea of the Islamist terror organization’s joining the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on the basis that this merging be attached to a political horizon wherein a Palestinian State is formed along the 1967 borders.
Further, the technocratic government, that is, a government composed of individuals based on their technical expertise and knowledge rather than political ideologies, that would theoretically oversee Gaza would not have any Hamas pre-stipulated members.
The Palestinian source conveyed to Sky News Arabia that this supposed agreement is based on three points laid out in an “Arab principles paper.” The paper was followed up on by a Palestinian-delegated Saudi team.
Agreement based on three points
The three points included that, first, the war in Gaza came to an end, and a political horizon was established for a two-state solution. Second, Gaza should be rebuilt with the leadership of a technocratic government. Third, the internal Palestinian situation should be monitored, reconciliation between the Palestinian factions should take place, and Hamas should join the PLO with a broader, unified Palestinian-Arab vision.
Hamas has a history of engaging in psychological warfare and has repeatedly rejected any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would include the existence of a Jewish State anywhere in the Land of Israel.
This has been a consistent position Hamas has taken since its inception.
In the Hamas charter of 1988, the preamble notes that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." Hamas leadership has been publicly espousing this idea ever since.
In late October of last year, Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told Lebanese news outlet LBCI that "Israel is a country that has no place on our land."
The news of the reported Hamas agreement came after PA President Abbas and other Palestinian officials returned from a three-day visit to Doha on Tuesday morning.