Possibly quite a bit but, remember, it wasn’t just the US that was involved. Nor was the Fatah/Hamas dynamic all tea and crumpets without external involvement. Much more likely than not Hamas still would have seized control of Gaza and Fatah still would have retained the West Bank. Malthus is right, Fatah and Hamas are the Kang and Kodos of Palestinian politics.
Well, as a pretty major oversimplification: different branches of the Palestinian government, from security to the legislative, we held by different factions. There wasn’t any real cooperative relationship or unity government, especially with the different factions playing a rousing game of Murderball.
Standard Fact Checking: this is nearly universally fictional. The 2007-2008 Gaza War began when Hamas launched rocket strikes on Israeli civilian targets. The claim that Israel bombed Gaza in order to put pressure on Abbas or scuttle negotiations is simply a Conspiracy Theory, falsified by the facts.
In March of 2008 Abbas unilaterally suspended talks due to Israel’s defensive war against Hamas in Gaza. In December of 2008 Abbas again unilaterally opposed talks due to violence between Hamas and Israel after Israeli responded militarily to indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks launched by Hamas. In 2010 after talks resumed again, Abbas again canceled them.
The claim that if Israel was “really serious” about peace it would not have responded militarily to rocket attacks on its civilians is, I think, safe to leave without comment.
Also contrary to the above claims, negotiations over Final Status issues were progressing although they were not finalized, as the Palestine Papers show.
Standard Fact Checking: this is a claim that Dick has made many times, but it simply is not at all true. Not only is it falsified by his own statements above (namely, that Israeli was in the process of negotiations with the PA even while Hamas was in control of Gaza), but by the historical record itself. Israel continued to negotiate with the PA during the 1990’s. More to the point, negotiations continued even after the reaction to Oslo was a record high rate of terrorism carried out against Israeli citizens. Even with that being the context, Israel participated in Clinton’s 2000-2001 peace initiative in order to settle Final Status issues. The peace offer that Israel put forward at that time was solid enough that Prince Bandar told Arafat that"I hope you remember, sir, what I told you. If we lose this opportunity, it is not going to be a tragedy. This is going to be a crime."
Standard Fact Checking: the relevant context has already been provided on Hamas’ stance via their Prime Minister speaking to a non-western audience.
“We said it five years ago and we say it now … we will never, we will never, we will never recognize Israel,”
Readers can figure out, for themselves, why Hamas may say one thing to receptive audiences and another to the western media. Readers will also note that Meshaal’s interview was from February of 2006. Also from February of 2006, but to a non-western audience, Meshaal’s comments were that: "Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day. " In 2010 he reiterated that he rejected negotiations entirely and would rely only on “the resistance and the gun”.
Further, what does he mean when he talks about the ‘liberation of Palestinian lands’?
“Who can tell, my brothers and sisters, when we will celebrate on this podium, the liberation of the West Bank? When will we celebrate the liberation of Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, and the Negev? When will we celebrate the departure of the last Zionist from our land?”
Readers will note that Jaffa is currently part of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and it has been part of Israel since before '67. Haifa, quite apart from being secured after '67, has been part of Israel since 1948. It is also Israel’s third largest city. Safed is also part of Israel and has been since before '67. Ditto for the Negev.
Standard Fact Checking: the claim that Israel intends to take possession of the entire West Bank is, to put it mildly, fanciful.
Standard Fact Checking: the cite I provided actually shows that internecine violence had been going on for years between Hamas and Fatah, and when a unity government was established, Hamas then took over control of Gaza.
Likewise, Jordan, Egypt, the United States and Israel all participated in strengthening Fatah security forces. Nor was there a coup being organized.
Standard Fact Checking: aside from the charming verbiage, Vanity Fair posted the final draft of the “action plan”.
Readers will note that the security component did not call for a coup, but instead called for the framework already set up by previous agreements made between Israel and the PA for the implementation of security policy.
Even the earlier “Plan B” document also did not discuss a coup. It mentioned early elections, a referendum, withdrawal of ministers and a “technocrat government” as possibilities. On security matters, that too called for Abbas to maintain control over the security forces that the PA had at their disposal.