Some Palestinians fear physical split is terminal blow to statehood

The long-mooted dream of two peoples residing peacefully in nations between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River took an unexpected shape this week. Instead of Israel and Palestine, the nations are Palestinian - a notional Hamasstan in the Gaza Strip and Fatahland in the West Bank.

Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip has created fears among Palestinians that the prospect of statehood has been shattered and that West Bank residents and Gaza residents may have to go their separate ways politically.

'They are destroying the Palestinian national project,' said Hafez Barghouti, a prominent newspaper editor on the West Bank, in a reference to Hamas.

For Israeli analysts, the new reality emerging from the smoke in Gaza presents a more coherent picture than existed before when Hamas and Fatah contended for power within the Palestinian Authority.

'There is now one entity in Gaza that we might call Hamasstan,' said Gidi Grinstein, head of the 'non-partisan' Zionist Reut Institute think-tank, on Israel Radio, 'and another in the West Bank that we can call Fatahland. The Gaza entity will be regarded as an enemy entity and treated accordingly. The fate of the West Bank entity remains to be seen.'

Some believe that Israel may be able to negotiate with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, also head of Fatah, about the fate of the West Bank. It has refrained from serious talks as long as the Palestinian Authority was two-headed - Fatah desiring peace with Israel as Hamas proclaimed its desire to destroy it.