A large part of the symbolism of King Abdullah of Jordan's first visit to the West Bank in a decade was to make it very clear to both Palestinians and Israelis that Jordan strongly supports reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, and does not see this as undercutting the authority of the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority. This was spelt out with great clarity by Hannan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, when she said that "one reason for the visit is to assure us that relations with Hamas do not replace relations with us".
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to hold power-sharing talks with Hamas leader Khalid Mesha'al in Cairo this week to try and restart the stalled talks, and put an end to the four-year-old division in the Palestinian leadership. The divide has been a great help to the Israelis, since it means that Palestine is unable to come up with a coherent political programme for itself, and any attempt to restart the peace negotiations are doomed until the Palestinians re-unite.
Mesha'al's Islamist rhetoric has caused him to be banned from travelling to Jordan since 1999, and King Abdullah is anxious to make it clear that if he comes to Jordan in the near future it will be solely as part of Jordan's encouragement of Palestinian reconciliation, and it should give no comfort to Jordan's own Islamist parties. The Arab Spring has encouraged Islamist parties across the whole region, which has alarmed both the US and Israel, which in turn have mounted strong opposition to the reconciliation with Hamas and their Muslim Brotherhood colleagues.
It is important that King Abdullah looks beyond this outside prejudice, and recognises the importance of Palestinian reconciliation as a step to finding a peaceful route to the two-state solution.
