A Palestinian political scandal

A Palestinian political scandal

For the first time in a long time, all of the major Palestinian factions are united ... in outrage. 

Leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah (the party headed by the current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and who is at the heart of this political controversy) have all joined forces and condemned a recent decision by the Palestinian representative at the UN Human Rights council to table a vote supporting the findings of the Goldstone Commission Report - an inquiry into alleged war crimes committed during Israel's war on Gaza. 

So who was behind this decision? And more importantly, why would the Palestinian leadership be in favor of delaying a vote that effectively supported an independent international investigation headed by a respected jurist that accused Israel of serious war crimes in its conduct of the war?

In Gaza, the deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya put the blame squarely on Abbas' shoulders, saying the Palestinian leadership was serving the interests of the US and Israel. Those are some serious allegations from one Palestinian leader against another. 

Under public pressure, Abbas has already ordered an inquiry into what lead to this decision. 

But if the Palestinian president was not behind the decision, then who could have made such a serious diplomatic blunder that contravened the direct interests of the Palestinian people's push for international justice? And if the Palestinian president didn't know, then who is running the show? If he did know and now had a change of heart after the outrage, then what does that say about the Palestinian leadership? It will certainly erode the people' confidence in it. 

There has been one irony in all of this. Palestinian factions, which for years have agreed on almost nothing, have all agreed this was a bad decision and want an independent investigation into how it happened. 

And yet despite the brief unity among the factions, this decision may have pushed by any chances of national reconciliation between Haniya's Hamas and Abbas's Fatah movements, which in recent weeks had gained momentum and showed signs of a possible breakthrough at the end of October in Egypt. 

But once again, the Palestinian people in Gaza, who were on the verge of at least some movement politically (national unity talks) and diplomatically (prisoner exchange deal) have had to watch their leadership squander it. So for now, its back to life as usual in Gaza.