More than a dozen Palestinian factions, including bitter rivals Fatah and Hamas, signed a joint declaration in Beijing on Tuesday vowing to form an interim unity government, although experts are skeptical that the diplomatic push brokered by China will succeed in bridging long-standing animosity between the groups.
More than a dozen Palestinian factions, including bitter rivals Fatah and Hamas, signed a joint declaration in Beijing on Tuesday vowing to form an interim unity government, although experts are skeptical that the diplomatic push brokered by China will succeed in bridging long-standing animosity between the groups.
The talks, which began on Sunday, marked the second time representatives from Hamas and Fatah had convened in the Chinese capital this year, as Beijing has cautiously sought to expand its diplomatic footprint in the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hailed the agreement, dubbed the Beijing Declaration, as a “historic moment for the cause of Palestine’s liberation” in a speech following the talks.
Chinese state media was quick to portray the declaration as a major breakthrough. “China has made another significant contribution to the peace and stability of a world in turbulence,” according to the Global Times, an English-language daily, while state news agency Xinhua described the deal as a “vivid manifestation of China’s concrete actions to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.”
The document calls for the creation of a Palestinian unity government to oversee the Palestinian territories—including both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank—and lay the groundwork for eventual general elections.
Hamas—the Islamist militant group that, until this latest war, governed the Gaza Strip—and Fatah—the secular political party that controls the Palestinian Authority, which governs portions of the Israeli-occupied West Bank—fought a bitter civil war in the mid-2000s as the militant group seized control of Gaza and have remained bitterly opposed since.
The agreement came just weeks after a rhetorical tit-for-tat between the two groups appeared to escalate tensions, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads Fatah, accusing Hamas of “legal, moral, and political” responsibility for the continuation of the war and senior Hamas officials accusing Fatah of aligning with Israel.
Multiple diplomatic efforts over the years to bridge the two groups that dominate Palestinian politics have failed, said Khaled Elgindy, the director of the Middle East Institute’s program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian affairs, and experts doubt that the Beijing Declaration will fare any better.
“I don’t think there’s a whole lot that’s new here,” Elgindy said. “There have been so many agreements, starting in Cairo in 2011. Not too long ago, there was the Moscow statement,” he added, speaking of previous mediation efforts. Russia has hosted a number of talks among Palestinian factions in Moscow, most recently this February.
Crucially, the Beijing Declaration lacks any description of an implementation mechanism to turn its pledges into a reality, Elgindy said. An unnamed senior Fatah official told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the deal had largely been signed out of respect for their Chinese hosts.
Regional experts said China was likely using the talks to bolster its diplomatic credentials as it increasingly seeks to rival the United States on the world stage.
“I think this is a quest for a cheap diplomatic reputation, optics mostly, enabling China to portray itself as a significant power broker in the Middle East, which used to be the realm of the U.S.,” said Assaf Orion, the director of the Israel-China program at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank.
Beijing has long-standing ties to the Palestinians, and in 1988, China became one of the first countries in the world to recognize a Palestinian state. In June 2023, China signed a strategic partnership agreement with the PA in Beijing, where Abbas met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
China’s diplomatic push for Palestinian unity also sends a powerful message to countries in the global south and across the Islamic world, where there has been a strong backlash against Israel’s punishing military campaign in Gaza, said Ahmed Aboudouh, an expert on China’s rising influence in the Middle East at Chatham House, as Beijing seeks to position itself as an alternative to the Western-led order in an increasingly multipolar world.
But no one in Israel is seriously considering China as a mediator, Orion said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz condemned the agreement in a statement on X. “Instead of rejecting terrorism, Mahmoud Abbas embraces the murderers and rapists of Hamas,” he said. “In reality, this won’t happen because Hamas’s rule will be crushed, and Abbas will be watching Gaza from afar.” Washington has historically provided the backbone for diplomatic efforts between the Israelis and Palestinians and is party to the ongoing efforts with Qatar and Egypt to broker a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas and secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza.
China’s attempt to secure a deal among the Palestinian factions, on the other hand, speaks to Beijing’s approach to high-stakes crises, in which it narrows in on a subsection of the crisis. “China plays a very crucial role in small initiatives to hand it over to the United Nations and to sideline the United States,” Aboudouh said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was also in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss paths to end the war with Russia, in his first visit to China since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
While few breakthroughs are expected as a result of the recent talks in Beijing involving the Palestinian factions, political rapprochement between Hamas and Fatah will be critical for effective governance in Gaza after the war, Elgindy said. With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set on eradicating Hamas after its attack on Oct. 7, 2023, the United States has viewed the Fatah-dominated PA as the best candidate to fill the power vacuum in the strip after the fighting ends—a proposal that Netanyahu has adamantly rejected.
But although the war has significantly diminished Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, U.S. officials and experts are skeptical that the group and its ideology can be fully eradicated. That raises the possibility that, without some kind of detente agreed between the two groups, Hamas could continue to play spoiler in Gaza, should the PA return to govern the strip.
“There’s no way for the PA to return to Gaza and be able to function without Hamas’s acquiescence at a minimum,” Elgindy said. “Even if they’re not in government, they have the ability to disrupt.”
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