The PLO-Hamas divorce is final

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Arutz 7, by Dr. Mordechai Kedar, 17/10/18

This week the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot informed us that Jason Greenblatt, President Trump's special representative for international negotiations, said that the Americans intend to reconnect the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority. If Greenblatt actually did say that, it reveals an important component of the American Peace Plan whose preparation has been going on for over a year.

The Americans hearkened to the Palestinian consensus they observed on this issue and concluded that both the Palestinian leadership and public are all for it, leading them to make it part of their plan, in the hope that the Palestinians would then accept the plan which all – the PLO, Hamas, Fronts and organizations – have refused pointblank even to consider. So if all the Palestinians want reunification and the Americans agree, where does the problem lie? Why don't the Palestinians agree to this part of the peace plan, at the very least? The answer is found in a very important aspect of Middle Eastern culture, one which has no counterpart in Western culture – the varied nuances of speech.

Western culture takes what is said at face value, for example: If I say that I agree with the person I am talking to, it means that I have listened to what he says, thought about it and have decided to accept his opinion. The West has faith in the sincerity of the person talking, believes what he says and accepts it as is. After all, there is free speech and anyone can say what is on their mind, so that when someone says something, it is what he really thinks and feels.

In the Middle East, however, everything anyone say has three layers: The upper and visible layer is the content of what has been said, the middle one is what the person speaking really means and the lowest is what he is hiding. While hearing someone's words, a listener in the Middle East tries to penetrate to the hidden layers, understand the real intention of the speaker and reveal what is being hidden from him.

That is why when any Palestinian Arab politician, PLO or Hamas, declares: "We must reunite Gaza and the West Bank" he means " I understand that this is what the man in the street wants and I am saying what he wants to hear," hiding the fact that he is certain that it will never happen and that he intends to blame the other side for the continued split.

Why won't the reunification happen? Because the two areas differ totally in their culture, language, behavior and thought patterns. Gaza Arabic is a Bedouin dialect, a derivative of Saudi spoken Arabic, while that of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria is a Palestinian dialect similar to the Arabic spoken in Syria.  The language gap is not just a technical factor in communication, it is the expression of cultural differences: Gaza's culture is Bedouin, while that of Arabs in Judea and Samaria is that of farmers and city dwellers.

Gaza's leadership is Hamas, an organization with a religious character that reflects its population's makeup, while the PLO rules the PA with a secular agenda that suits the Arab population of Judea and Samaria, except for the Hevron Hills whose residents are more traditional. The split between Gaza and Judea/Samaria is not only political, but based on cultural differences, with a cultural abyss separating two different populations who have never lived together except for the short period from the establishment of the PLO in 1994 to the split in 2007, fourteen years later, during which time there was no cultural blending between the two regions.  Even more significant is the bad blood flowing between the two ruling organizations, the PLO and Hamas. The expressions they use against one another are the worst in Arabic political language:  "Traitors", "Collaborators with Israel", "corrupt", "bloodsuckers", "Israeli border police" and many other much more malevolent accusations.

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