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(This article is continued from the article, Three challenges for the national unity government in Palestine) The Israeli challenge: Israel is the main loser in this agreement. Any national unity between Palestinians requires it to face its responsibilities. It is for that the Israeli government will try by all the means to create problems for this new government. The threats have already started. The Israeli authorities will be able to close the passages which connect the Gaza Strip to the West Bank; they will be able to prohibit to Palestinian ministers to move between these two points, they will be able to also suspend the transfer of taxes to the Palestinian budget. But the true danger will come especially from the provocations by Israel to certain Palestinian factions, in the form of attacks, of bombardments, and incursions, in particular in Gaza, in order to provoke their reaction by rocket fire, which would lead to a new escalation in the region. In this case, Israel would be the first beneficiary of this situation of war and instability under the pretext of defending its citizens and its safety. And to finish, the international challenge: the official International community could, if it so decides, approve the Israeli position, cut the assistances granted to the Palestinian authority, and put pressure on this new Palestinian government to accept the conditions of the Middle East \"Quartet\", that is to say, the suspension of violence and the recognition of the agreements signed by Israel and the PLO. The official international community could take again its position of 2006 when itboycotted the government created after the elections of 2006 in the Palestinian territories. Faced with these challenges, the new government will have to be firm, it will have to resist, continue to work, even under extremely difficult conditions and a particular context marked by threats and the lack of resources. In spite of these challenges and the difficulties of their application, the Palestinian leaders and movements must remain conscious of their responsibility to fulfill the expectations of the Palestinian people, so that national unity is achieved and our people are allowed to decide its own destiny and to found a free and independent State, its own State, Palestine. |