Isn't Hamas The Last People Abbas Should Be Signing An Agreement With?

Not everyone is all smiles when it comes to the Hamas-Fatah unity agreement. Gaza-based Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad for example has condemned the agreement:

On May 5, 2011, a day after the signing of a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement, the shari'a council of the Gaza-based jihadi organization Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad issued a statement on the jihadi forum Shumukh Al-Islam calling the agreement null and void. It pointed out that the agreement was based on man-made laws rather than on the Koran and Sunna, and thereby contradicted the shari'a.


Jama'at Al-Tawhid condemned the fact that the agreement was grounded on international pacts and laws and that it had been signed under the auspices of the Egyptian security apparatuses, which, it said, fought Islam. It concluded by pointing out that the Fatah-Hamas agreement involved recognition of a Jewish presence on Islamic land, despite the fact that no one was authorized to give up Islamic land.

Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad is the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group that is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Vittorio Arrigoni.

Even if you say that Abbas is bravely signing the agreement on principle--Hamas should be the last people that Abbas should be signing with. Challah Hu Akbar quotes Khaled Abu Toameh about the Palestinian attitude towards collaborators: Hamas executed a collaborator--Karim Shrair--just before signing the unity agreement.

Not to be outdone, Fatah then followed suit just a few days later, executing a collaborator on their own.

Rather than illustrating that the 2 groups see eye-to-eye when it comes to collaborators, this raises a problem for Abbas. Toameh points out:

Whatever Shrair did to help Israel, it could not have been more than what Abbas and Fayyad have done over the past few years. The two meet with Israelis on a regular basis and support security coordination between their security forces and the Israelis.

In the eyes of Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas and Salaam Fayyad are also "traitors" because they have agreed -- at least in English and in public -- to recognize Israel's right to exist. If Abbas and Fayyad were to stand trail before a court on all what Hamas has accused them of doing, they too would end up facing a firing squad.

Still, I suppose that Abbas would feel more comfortable with Hamas than with  Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad.
But just barely.

Technorati Tag: Fatah and Abbas and Hamas.