The Palestinian rift widened on Wednesday after a new government, again headed by Western-backed Salam Fayyad took power, with Hamas categorically rejecting the cabinet. The new cabinet was sworn in Tuesday in the West Bank town of Ramallah, a day after reconciliation talks between president Mahmud Abbas's secular Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement ended in Egypt without a deal.
Fayyad and the previous cabinet resigned in March to pave the way for a unity deal between the two factions which have been at loggerheads since Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007. The Islamists were quick to denounce the new cabinet, which does not include any Hamas members and comes ahead of Abbas's first official meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington on May 28.
"This government is illegal and we will not recognise it," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said in a statement, adding that, with its creation, Abbas was "deliberately sabotaging the Palestinian dialogue."
Analysts said the new government would only deepen the divide between Abbas's West Bank-based leadership and the Islamist masters of Gaza. "The new government will entrench the divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," said Mahdi Abdel Hadi, a political analyst.
"The (intra-Palestinian) differences are too big. This cabinet will not be able to bridge them and, on the contrary, is likely to exacerbate them," he said. "To form a new government right now without taking into account the (reconciliation) dialogue shows a political stubborness on the part of president Abbas."
The divisions were on stark display on Tuesday, when Hamas prevented two Fatah members from leaving Gaza to take the oath of office in Ramallah. Others said the new government was formed as a result of pressure by Washington ahead of the Abbas-Obama meeting.
"Unfortunately the Quartet (on Middle East peace that comprises the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States) and especially the Americans have become key players on the Palestinian political stage and get involved in the smallest details," said independent MP Hassan Khreisheh. Hamas-Fatah reconciliation is crucial for the reconstruction of Gaza following Israel's devastating offensive in December and January, and for progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
International donors pledged 4.5 billion dollars to Abbas's Palestinian Authority at an Egyptian conference in March, much of it for the reconstruction of Gaza, but many refuse to channel funds through Hamas, insisting the Palestinian Authority must supervise the spending. Israel argues that a final peace deal with the Palestinians is impossible as long as Hamas, still blacklisted as a terror group by most Western governments, runs the smaller half of the Palestinians' promised state.
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