Billions of dollars in overall aid, over a billion specifically for Hamas, plus a seemingly unending supply of military training and gear to Fatah. This is what it buys us:

Palestinian leaders warned Arab states on Monday that any effort to normalise ties with Israel at the urging of President Barack Obama would deal a damaging blow to the quest for statehood. The dispute over Israel's role in the Middle East emerged as Fatah, the dominant faction in Palestinian politics, prepared to stage its first congress since a meeting in exile in 1989... "Normalisation of Israel's ties with Arab countries before the occupation ends in the Palestinian areas is the last thing that the Palestinians should have to experience," said Abu El-Izz Dajani, a former PLO ambassador who is running for a post in the Fatah leadership. "It is as dangerous as the Nakba, as dangerous as the 1967 seizure of the West Bank and Jerusalem."

This is really surprising. Because after they went out of their way to insist that they weren't pressuring Hamas to recognize Israel, I thought for sure they were in favor of recognizing Israel:

In "Dahlan to Hamas: Never recognize Israel," March 17, The Jerusalem Post reported that "former Fatah security commander Muhammad Dahlan ... called on Hamas not to recognize Israel's right to exist, pointing out that Fatah had never recognized it." Speaking on Palestinian Authority TV, Dahlan said reports that Fatah demanded Hamas recognize Israel as a precondition for a Palestinian unity government were "misleading." "They [Hamas] say that Fatah has asked them to recognize Israel's right to exist and this is a big deception. For the one thousandth time, I want to reaffirm that we are not asking Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist. Rather, we are asking Hamas not to do so because Fatah never recognized Israel's right to exist .... We acknowledge that the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] did recognize Israel's right to exist, but we are not bound by it as a resistance [terrorist] faction."

That was a couple weeks after they took credit for murdering two Israelis as part of an open campaign of armed escalation. Quoth the Philadelphia Bulletin: "Fatah Terrorizes While Undergoing US Military Training."

Best. Peace process. Ever.

References and previously after the jump...