Palestinian reconciliation and the potential of transitional justice

Abstract

This paper focuses on the political division between Fatah and Hamas as the principle obstacle to intra-Palestinian reconciliation. The lack of trust between the two factions is rooted in the 2007 division, or fitna. This separation occurred when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip after winning the 2006 elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and after a period of violent clashes between Hamas and Fatah security forces. In the decade since the 2007 division, Fatah and Hamas have signed several reconciliation agreements, but the will to carry out the agreements often withered before the ink was dry. Despite several meaningful attempts, calls for reconciliation on both sides have mostly been rhetorical. Deep mistrust has caused each attempt at reconciliation to falter, and tensions between the two key Palestinian political parties continue to this day. This analysis will extensively address the key concepts of transitional justice and reconciliation in the case of Palestine. Transitional justice refers to the ways in which countries that have emerged from periods of conflict and repression can address large-scale or systematic human rights violations to which the conventional or existing justice system does not have adequate responses.