Washington – Moves by the Obama administration to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have hit a new snag with a Palestinian unity deal, as US clout in the Arab world wanes, analysts say.
The deal between the secularist Fatah and radical Islamist Hamas factions, due to be signed on Wednesday, has drawn Israeli ire and prompted US lawmakers to warn the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority it risks losing US aid.
Israel and the United States both consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization.
However, analysts said, rising popular pressure forced US-backed Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to clinch a deal under which the bitter rivals agreed to form a transitional government ahead of elections within a year.
Palestinians, emboldened by pro-democracy revolutions sweeping the Arab world, have for weeks been demanding unity between Fatah, which dominates the West Bank, and Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip coastal enclave.
"This (deal) really does cast the die in a way that reflects the almost irrelevance of America as an actor in their (Palestinian) issues," according to Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East peace negotiator.
Miller, now a public policy scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said Abbas is not thinking about how his actions play in Israel and the United States.
Instead, Miller said, he is focused on "broadening and legitimizing his domestic base" and eventually winning recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September – a route to statehood opposed by Washington.
"The Palestinians have gone and done something which really makes our position untenable. It's even questionable whether we will be able to deal with a government in which Hamas ministers sit," Miller told AFP.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor warned last week that any Palestinian unity government must renounce violence, abide by past peace agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.
Hamas has long rejected those principles endorsed by the Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
The Palestinian move, Miller said, hands Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "major propaganda victory" before he visits Washington next month to address Congress.
And it makes it harder for President Barack Obama's administration which relaunched peace talks last September only to see them grind to halt when a partial freeze on Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank ended.
The right-wing Netanyahu will feel less pressure to make concessions to the Palestinians as he will be better able to portray Abbas as not serious about peace, he said.
Meanwhile, he said, Obama, who is due to give a speech soon on Middle East policy, will be wary of proposing US ideas for a settlement on borders and Jerusalem that could be perceived as rewarding the Palestinians.
Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the University of Maryland, agreed that the reconciliation deal strengthened Netanyahu's hand and "put the (Obama) administration in a bind."
It is indeed likely to change the content of their speeches, he added.
However, he said events were still unfolding and it may be possible for a Palestinian unity government to be formed that continues to negotiate with Israel on the basis of accepting the Jewish state and renouncing terrorism.
"That's separate from what position that they (Hamas) may or not have as a party. I think that's a little bit difficult for a lot of people to accept. It's going to take a lot of diplomatic skill to manage it," he said.
Telhami said US policy makers were contending with a new Arab reality.
"The rise in the importance of public opinion makes governments in the Middle East somewhat less sensitive to the US and more sensitive to the public and in that sense it reduces the degree of immediate influence the US has," he said.
Analysts said Egypt, after President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February, is also now steering a more independent diplomatic course by brokering the Palestinian deal, planning to open the border with Gaza and warming up to Iran.
Robert Danin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs under President George W. Bush, said Washington can no longer count on Egypt as the steadfast ally it was under Mubarak.
"A post-Mubarak Egypt is going to be much more independent… of the United States and more challenging to work with as a partner to advance the peace process," Danin told AFP.
