First time in a year: Abbas meets with Hamas leaders in the West Bank

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority met yesterday with officials of Hamas for the first time in a year in an effort to end the rivalry between the two movements and to advance any real hope of Palestinian statehood. He told them that the way forward was to agree on the formation of a temporary independent government with one goal: to hold legislative and presidential elections in the next six months and then rebuild Gaza. Abbas intends to go to Gaza to sign such a deal with the leaders of Hamas. He has not set foot in Gaza in the four years since a brief, bloody civil war there sent him and his Fatah colleagues fleeing to the West Bank and leaving the two halves of a future state unable to speak to each other.