Spirit of solidarity sidelines Palestinian split

By Wafa Amr

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel's offensive on Gaza appears to be creating a mood of unity on the streets of the West Bank that the leaders of hostile Palestinian factions have been unable to obtain in months of negotiation.

It is not the formal entente they say they are searching for, but it is a grassroots solidarity of suffering that some feel exposes how artificial is the split in Palestinian ranks at the level of the political leadership.

On Tuesday, angry Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah protested, chanting: "Today Gaza is under fire, tomorrow it will be the West Bank."

Slogans called for an end to the schism between President Mahmoud Abbas' secular Fatah faction and Islamist rival Hamas, winner of a 2006 parliamentary election. Since fighting in 2007, the two now control the West Bank and Gaza Strip respectively.

Abbas and his allies are ready to negotiate peace with Israel after 60 years in return for an end to occupation and an Arab state that would live side by side with the Jewish state, in mutual security.

Hamas has refused to recognise Israel's right to exist and its leaders call on all to join their resistance platform.

Some analysts say Israel is content to have Palestinians divided, and doubt that there would be serious progress towards a peace deal with them if Islamist hardliners were brought back into the fold.

Non-stop television pictures of charred corpses and children's body parts plucked from the smoking rubble of bombed buildings are shocking West Bank Palestinians.