The Palestinian Authority has effectively been split into a secular Fatah-dominated collection of West Bank cantons and the Islamic Hamas-controlled Gaza as Palestine implodes - and farther away from the dream of establishing an independent Palestinian state that straddles both parts in accordance with the United Nations Resolution 242. It is clear that many of those currently promising to support President Mahmood Abbas and arm Fatah are merely intent on deepening the intra-Palestinian strife by deflecting attention to the apparent failings of Hamas while Israel expands its illegal settlements to further undermine the viability of a Palestinian administration on the West Bank. President Abbas must also know that Israel's failure to secure access to Lebanon's Litani River has strengthened its resolve to retain control of the West Bank's water resources, and crucially that the zoning system imposed on the Palestinian West Bank under the Oslo Agreement, which his government accepts, permits Israel to determine which bits of the territory to withdraw from and when. In other words, the Palestinians must take Israel's promise of Palestinian statehood on trust until the "final status" talks determine the frontiers of such a state. Alas, the suspicion persists that Ariel Sharon's unilateral evacuation of Gaza followed a strategic decision to limit the independent Palestinians state of the final settlement to that cauldron of nostalgia and animosity.

Forty years of hindsight ought to have persuaded the Israelis that their continued occupation of East Jerusalem, the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights have brought little more than instability to the whole Middle East region and misery to Arabs and Jews alike. It was hoped that peace with Egypt in 1973 would end the occupation, but Israel was not ready for that. Another chance was forfeited at the 1991 Madrid peace talks when Israel spurned Syria's eleven-point plan for a comprehensive and total Israeli withdrawal from all Arab lands occupied in 1967 in exchange for a demilitarised zone on both sides of the Syrian-Israeli frontier and the continued existence of an unspecified number of Jewish settlements under Arab sovereignty in a "liberated" Palestinian West Bank.

The latest Saudi-sponsored peace initiatives have fared no better. Meanwhile, non-state actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah have emerged to replace the League of Arab nations as the implacable defenders of the Palestinians' right of self-determination. The West perceives them as threats to Israel's existence largely because they no longer believe the juggling friends that fill Palestinian ears with promises, but break their hopes. Insisting that the British were obliged to establish a national home for the Jews in Palestine without detriment to the rights of the Arab population, they argue that the cruel treatment of Jews in Germany, Europe and elsewhere was morally outrageous but cannot justify the eviction of Arabs from their Palestinian homeland to relieve the Jewish distress.

Hamas has long been designated a "terrorist organisation" by the West and the people of Gaza, 80% of whom are reportedly dependent on external food aid, can therefore expect to be subjected to frequent vacillations between severity and humane treatment, intermixed with contradictory promises of future prospects in the initial Western bid to wean them from their de facto government's influence. The reported proclamation by a Hamas official of the "arrival of Islamic rule" in Gaza cannot but increase the isolation of the territory's Hamas government; for neither Israel nor Egypt nor Jordan the Ramallah-based Palestinian government would relish the establishment of a radical Islamic state in that neighbourhood. President Abbas and the leaders of Hamas must however reflect that the Palestinian people have nothing to gain from the triumph of brother against brother.

The growing call for "international peacekeepers" to combine with Egyptian forces on their side of the border to "restore order" in "Hamastan," as Israeli spokesmen have dubbed Gaza, reflects the widespread expectation of external intervention which the Hamas government will invariably resist and most Palestinians and Arabs could regard as a new occupation force. The zealous endorsement of such a force by both the European Union and United Nations is all the more surprising in view of the evident reluctance of Arab governments to become entangled in the Hamas-Fatah-Israeli tangle, even in the "peacekeeping" capacity of running down Kassam rocket launching teams or patrolling Gaza neighbourhoods where fighting often flows from house to house. We urge extreme caution on all sides; for miscalculation could easily explode the brewing tension into a violent turmoil that could quickly engulf the entire region and even threaten world peace.