Fatah officials are considering bringing Hamas into a “national unity” government, because they believe that the Obama Administration has ended Bush Administration objections to doing this, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“In the first meeting of its kind in more than two years, senior Fatah and Hamas officials met in Cairo over the weekend to discuss ways of ending the power struggle between the two parties and forming a “national unity” government. ...A PA official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that the meeting was also the result of the change of government in the US. He noted that the previous administration of President George W. Bush was strongly opposed to any form of reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas....'The departure of the Bush administration has paved the way for Palestinian national reconciliation,’ the PA official said. ‘In the past, Bush and [former US Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice were totally opposed to talks between Fatah and Hamas.”’