The Palestinian Three-State Solution - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...As of now, it is safe to call their arrangement a three-state solution: one Palestinian state in the West Bank and two in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah and Hamas must be laughing their heads off as, under weak and impotent governments, they see their power grow.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
04 October '17..

The latest "reconciliation" deal between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas brings the Palestinians closer to creating a state-within-a-state in the Gaza Strip. The PA and Hamas will now have two separate mini-states of their own in the Gaza Strip.

This arrangement is similar to the situation in Lebanon, where Hezbollah maintains a separate mini-state of its own there.

In state-like fashion, Hezbollah in Lebanon has its own army and territory. This situation, which has gone on for decades, has enraged many Lebanese politicians.

Earlier this year, when dozens of masked Hezbollah militiamen launched a nighttime raid to arrest drug dealers in Beirut, Lebanese politicians accused their government of giving up its authority in favor of Hezbollah's "tiny state." The militiamen belonged to Hezbollah's "social security department," a police force that operates independently of the Lebanese security authorities.

"This is what a country that has given up its authority in favor of the 'tiny state' (of Hezbollah) looks like," said Ashraf Rifi, Lebanon's former justice minister. Rifi said that the pictures of the Hezbollah militiamen conducting the raid testify for the umpteenth time how the very existence of Hezbollah goes against the state and its institutions.

Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority are now headed, willingly or unwillingly, towards plunging the Palestinians into a similar scenario as in Lebanon. The "reconciliation" accord they reached in Cairo paves the way for creating a mini-state within a mini-state in the Gaza Strip. These two "states" will be added to the mini-Palestinian Authority "state" that already exists in parts of the West Bank.

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