Has Israel accepted the Palestinian unity government?

Four months after the June swearing-in ceremony, Israel has backed off its militant pronouncements and is cooperating with the Palestinian unity government. Israel, which spoke with such decisiveness before Operation Protective Edge, has been forced to change its stance, and cooperation with the Fatah-Hamas government is now a concrete fact.

By way of a reminder, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas surprised everyone by declaring a unity government with Hamas in April of 2014, Israel was quick to react with harsh condemnation. At an urgent Cabinet consultation convened at the time by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some of the ministers demanded that Israel impose severe sanctions on the Palestinian Authority (PA); but fearing an additional confrontation with the Barack Obama administration, which recognized Abbas' new government, Israel made do with threatening to impose sanctions. Israel did not even freeze the tax revenues it collects for the PA, as it does each time it thinks the Palestinians are going in an unacceptable direction.

Israel started taking action against the unity government in the West Bank only after the June 12 kidnapping of the three youths — Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach. The “Brother's Keeper” operation ballooned into Operation Protective Edge, and the rest is history.

The military confrontation could have been avoided had Israel acted with forethought and wisdom. But Netanyahu and his government needed a massive operation in Gaza, dozens of dead Israelis and thousands of dead and injured Palestinians to understand what was so obvious to anyone who read the internal Palestinian map correctly: Abbas would only obtain a foothold in Gaza through a Fatah-Hamas unity government. That would not only be good for Fatah, which was humiliated and violently kicked out of Gaza seven years ago in 2007, but would also serve Israel’s security interests.