RAMALLAH, August 8, 2011 (WAFA) – The new round of talks between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo and the meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan were the focus of Monday’s three Palestinian dailies. However, the main top front page story differed from one paper to another.
While all three papers had a picture of Abbas and Abdullah on the front page, only Al-Hayat Al-Jadida highlighted this meeting on the top of its front page. The story came second in Al-Quds, and Al-Ayyam treated it as a regular story.
The top story in Al-Quds was on the Fatah-Hamas talks in Cairo, giving a progress report on the meeting, while the top story in Al-Ayyam continued to be the strife in Syria. The Fatah-Hamas talks were covered lower on the front page in Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, indicating that the meeting had nothing new.
Anti-Palestinian rhetoric and all-hell-will-break-loose-in-September statements by hard-line Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman took prominence on the front pages of Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, while Al-Quds ignored them.
The Israeli tent protests and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements on the matter were front page stories in the three dailies.
An Al-Quds editorial touched on the Fatah-Hamas talks, wondering how long the two parties will keep talking before they end the division that harms Palestinians and serves the Israelis.
“Who is paying the price of the division,” said the paper, “and who is responsible for the people killed, injured and mutilated as a result of the division, and for the suffering that this division has caused our people?”
It called on the leaders who caused the split to stand aside and spare the people any more suffering.
An opinion piece in Al-Ayyam by Talal Aukal also tackled the division and the Fatah-Hamas talks, saying that, while the news media has given little attention to the meeting in Cairo, the people showed absolute indifference and political parties showed disregard.
He said that the people who celebrated signing the reconciliation agreement are now discouraged and disheartened by the delay in implementing it.
“It is clear now that the agreement has been shelved awaiting what will happen in September, which is the priority and main goal of the Palestinian leadership, as if reconciliation will be a burden on that plan,” he wrote.
Another editorial in Al-Ayyam by Atef Abu Seif had the headline: “Turkey: Time to intervene in Syria.” The author did not expect that Turkey will remain quiet for long regarding the happenings in Syria.
M.A./F.J.
