There is no doubt that the distressed Israel will spare no cards or weapons, and weapons here are not a figure of speech, in order to thwart the Palestinian reconciliation. The befuddled United States will probably take Israel's side, as it has always done, and will aid it in planting mines in the path of the efforts by Fatah and Hamas to overcome internal and regional causes for their estrangement, and to revive the Palestinian cause in the manner it deserves, after the Palestinian division led to weakening both negotiators and resistors equally. Certainly, Israeli and American pressure will be met with compliance from certain Arab and European countries, and for this reason, the task of protecting the reconciliation seems more difficult than achieving it per se. The reconciliation is the fruit of changing dynamics in the region, including, first and foremost, the arrival of the Palestinian situation to a dead end. Neither has the Palestinian authority managed to achieve a political feat, nor Hamas managed to achieve a military breakthrough. Instead, stalemate seems to be the name of the game for both tracks in the past few years, accompanied by deterioration in the importance of the Palestinian factor both in the region and beyond. This became especially the case after the United States gave Israel a free pass to continue settlement building and land grabs. The second dynamic involves the uprisings which have brought about change in Egypt, unrest in Syria, and before that, sharp polarity in Iran and a decline in its role, deepened by the decision of the Arab GCC countries to close the door on its meddling in the affairs of the region. The third is the fact that Israel seems more than ever a ‘part' of the region and its problems, and hence will not remain immune to the ever widening wave of change. This means that the Western countries, which rushed to military intervention in Libya because its regime is murdering its people, cannot continue to remain silent vis-à-vis the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, and the Israeli settlement, blockade of Gaza, and its bloody repression of the Palestinians today. This means that the upcoming critical stage requires complete coordination of political and practical stances between the two main Palestinian parties, and the rest of the factions, and adopting a new tone in addressing the region and the world. There must also be serious work to plug all security gaps that Israel can exploit, and steer clear of pompous slogans that characterized the period of estrangement. This is especially valid because warranting an access to the promised European support for the national unity government and at a later stage the Palestinian state does not allow for the ‘luxury' of talk about ‘eliminating' the state of Israel or ‘venting off' by firing rockets at Israeli cities. Although the task of protecting the reconciliation is up to the Palestinians themselves in the first place, it also needs, and rather quickly, Arab support to guarantee its success. True, some Arab countries continue to feel some disappointment concerning the past stances of both sides vis-à-vis their efforts to achieve reconciliation between them, while other countries are not comfortable with losing the card of Palestinian division which they used to serve their own standing and interests. However, what is required is for the Arab stance to overlook the small details that have always impeded joint action and to develop an effective plan of support, with what this entails in terms of confronting pressures that the United States will exert at the behest of Israel. This plan of support would also encompass political, media and even financial efforts to follow-up the Palestinian reconciliation and taking it to safety. This is especially important since the success of the proposal of declaring a Palestinian state at the UN in September requires massive joint diplomatic efforts.
