Making a Fatah and Hamas Partnership Work for U.S., Israel: View

Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The news that the mainstreamPalestinian group Fatah has agreed to form a unity governmentwith the militantly Islamist Hamas may move some to dismay.Although there are ample reasons for that reaction, thisdevelopment may also present an opportunity.

Over the past year, the world has changed not just aroundIsrael, but also around the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the twoPalestinian territories ruled, respectively, by Hamas and Fatah.That is especially true for Hamas. The Arab Spring has drivenone of the movement’s two most important sponsors -- Syria --into turmoil. The crackdown by Bashar al-Assad’s regime on thecountry’s Sunni majority has unnerved many inside Hamas, whichis also Sunni, and its chairman-in-exile, Khaled Mashaal, hasleft his headquarters in Damascus. He also recently announced hewould not serve another term.