Top Hamas officials are meeting in Qatar today to discuss a potential unity agreement with the rival Palestinian Fatah faction.

Back in the West Bank, however Fatah officials are calling on the Iran-backed terror group to release a Fatah member currently jailed in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip:

Fatah called on Thursday for the release of a detained party-affiliated man held in a Hamas jail in Gaza, a party statement said. Fatah says Ramzi Kallab was arrested by Hamas security forces after returning from Egypt to the Gaza Strip. The statement accused Hamas of carrying out a campaign of politically motivated arrests against Fatah affiliates, a charge the Gaza government denies.

The accusation of politically motivated arrests is not without warrant. Fatah and Hamas have recently traded tit-for-tat arrest sweeps in Gaza and in the Fatah-controlled West Bank. Such arrest sweeps – coupled with house demolitions – have are considered unhealthy to the chances for Palestinian unity.

A unity deal would seek to bring Palestinian areas in both territories under a single government. At stake are Palestinian diplomatic pretensions toward statehood. Last fall the Palestinian Authority sought and secured a U.N. declaration of non-member statehood, under which the U.N. General Assembly recognized a Palestinian state across those two territories. The declaration had at best-limited legal force, and the continuing Palestinian political division implies that any Palestinian state would by definition be a failed state.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas come under increasing pressure to pursue unity and seems – at least outwardly – amenable. His new calculations may be grounded in the recent resignation of Palestinian President Salam Fayyad, who had been considered a moderate:

“We will hold consultations in the near future to form a government,” said Abbas, according to a statement issued after the meeting…. Hamas and Fatah have both said that Fayyad’s resignation could provide an opportunity for the launch of serious efforts to reconcile the two sides. Fayyad, who resigned on Saturday, was a bone of contention between Fatah, which dominates the West Bank, and the Islamist Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.

Fayyad’s resignation has damaged the credibility of the Palestinian Authority government with U.S. officials, and has left future U.S. assistance in doubt.

[Photo: Trango / Wiki Commons]