Abbas' Fatah party was trounced by Hamas in elections earlier this year. He said that the new government's diplomatic plan is based on the Prisoners' Document - a paper drawn up this past May by several leading terrorists imprisoned in Israel... Even in the new government, Hamas will not recognize Israel outright; it rather hopes that its acceptance of vague Arab peace initiatives, such as the Saudi plan of 2002, will enable other countries to remove their diplomatic boycotts from the PA. Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, said today he hopes the new government will be formed in the coming days. Hamas insists that Ismail Haniye, the current prime minister, must continue to serve in this post.

If there is actually a Palestinian unity government and that government declares a ceasefire, the following things will happen:
* The international community will announce that the ceasefire is a concession by Hamas which should be rewarded in order to encourage them to moderate further.
* Hamas will send out conflicting signals regarding the precise status of their anti-Jewish genocidal commitments - which everyone will convienetly ignore had been unnegotiable divine obligations just a few short days before (and who knows, maybe they'll be serious this time).
* The PA will begin negotiations with Israel based on the prisoner's document. Israel will be unable to refuse, because here finally the Palestinians are acting like they might not want to destroy the Jewish state. Except the Prisoner's Document, uh, demands the Right of Return, which means the destruction of Israel. But Israel will be told that they can negotiate about that part of the document .