Now, that is not nice, but we certainly prefer a strong Fatah—which cooperates with Israel on terrorism prevention—to honest Hamas or democracy (which, in the current political situation, is the same thing). It is in Israel’s interest to keep Fatah corrupt and its lynchpins fat and lazy. If, to that end, the Arabs want to suppress their journalists, we could not care less.

Now Jenin has become scandalous for the Palestinians. After Fatah militiamen attacked a local governor, the PA ordered a wholesale crackdown on its own militants there, with scores arrested for criminal activities. Recall that all of them receive pensions funded by Israeli tax transfers.

At the same time, Hamas treads the path of Fatah: as the major terrorist group grows moderate, it loses its reason for existence and is overcome by smaller groups, such as PRC and PIJ. Thus, signing a peace treaty with Hamas solves nothing for Israel.

Their differences were minimal to begin with: Hamas insisted on full withdrawal to the 1948 armistice line, while Fatah allowed less than a 3% correction of it. Hamas spoke of a long-term truce, while Fatah benevolently offered us a Cold War-style peace.

Now Israel appears to be in an odd position: we refuse to negotiate with Hamas, but we finance and defend its clone, the Fatah.

Well, the talks have been fruitless for decades, but that has nothing to do with any Fatah-Hamas agreement. We negotiated with the Arabs when they had a single government before their rift in Gaza.

That in itself is no big threat to the Palestinians, who rightly see the negotiations as pointless. Besides, Israel won’t be able to withhold tax transfers even from the Hamas government. But the Israeli government has a short memory: we did cooperate with a Palestinian government that included Hamas, before the terrorist group evicted Fatah from Gaza.

Right now, Israel, the US, and EU finance even the Hamas-only government in Gaza, pretending that their aid money goes directly to public servants. No doubt a similar arrangement would exist for the West Bank.

Hamas, however, has little incentive to join Fatah in the bankrupt and discredited Ramallah government. Ruling the enclave in Gaza unilaterally and with few responsibilities (as the Strip is supplied by the UNRWA) is a much better option. Hamas gains more by waiting for the Fatah government to fail on its own. Fatah leaders are also loathe to disrupt their cozy relations with Israel by bringing Hamas into the government.

One interesting point of reconciliation is the introduction of Hamas guerrillas into Fatah’s police forces, which are trained and armed by the Americans.

After Hamas wins in subsequent elections, the entire police force will fall under the terrorist group’s authority.

Incidentally, Israel has a similar objective regarding that bid. And Hamas thinks too highly of Jewish leaders if it imagines they would be unwilling to negotiate under fire.