Israeli Press
Ynet says Dahlan now bridges Hamas and Washington and rattles Ramallah
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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Mohammed Dahlan — the exiled former Fatah security chief and Mahmoud Abbas's oldest rival — has become an increasingly important intermediary between Hamas, Egypt, the Gulf states and the Trump administration, the Israeli site Ynet reported Monday, with correspondent Einav Halabi writing that Ramallah fears he could hand Hamas a route back into legitimate Palestinian politics.
Much of the report's core checks out in the Palestinian record, and not as a leak: both sides announced it.
Hamas politburo member Hossam Badran said on 12 August that the movement will contest the 27 November legislative election "within the broadest possible national coalition," and confirmed a series of meetings with Dahlan's Democratic Reform Current — some attended by Dahlan himself.
Dahlan's own current announced his Cairo meeting with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya on consolidating the ceasefire, and Dahlan has described his contacts with the US administration in his own interviews.
One claim stands on Ynet's sourcing alone: that Dahlan sat in Sunday's more-than-two-hour meeting between US envoy Jared Kushner and al-Hayya in El-Alamein. Wire accounts of that session name Board of Peace director Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair, not Dahlan, and an anonymous Palestinian Authority official supplies the report's claim that donor states smile on the rapprochement.
The report also omits Ramallah's answer on the record: Fatah's spokesman has ruled out any joint list with Hamas, and the movement will run a single official slate. The Central Elections Commission, meanwhile, has opened registration and set the vote for 27 November.
