PeakDash

MARGARET WARNER:

Well, the interesting thing is, Jim, that they don't have a unified command or power structure yet. And that's been part of their strength in Gaza and in the West Bank. But they had always planned afterwards, after the election to get together and hold a big confab and have a big discussion about what to do. But they never thought they'd be dealing with this.

So you had conflicting statements, but the most interesting one in the inner Palestinian debate was the public comment from some Hamas leaders that they wanted a national unity government; they wanted a Palestinian people unified.

The people in Fatah and the Palestinian Authority say, at least the younger guards say look, they just want this as a figure leaf. One person said, they just want us to do the dirty work like continue to, as they put it, try to negotiate with the Israelis where we would have no standing.

And a lot of the younger members are saying let's not do it; let's go into opposition. If we stay — if we join this government, we'll have no credibility, we'll look totally opportunistic and we'll give them a figure leaf, we'll give them cover.

And in fact, one of them said to me much what Yossi Halevi said when I interviewed him this afternoon in Simon's — in the piece Simon just did — which is, is let the Palestinian people say if Hamas can govern and let them see what they voted for.

So nothing has been decided yet. Mahmoud Abbas had a big meeting late tonight, with all the — I don't know if it was all but a lot of the Fatah members who won. All they did was come out and essentially give the speech you and I talked about last night about, I expect the new prime minister to form this government according to my principles. I was elected president. But that leaves a lot open to question. I mean, he's not in much position. He doesn't have a lot of leverage at this point.

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