Word: mecca
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...have grown anxious that their own increased diplomatic efforts are going unrewarded as they watch the growing influence of Iran, which backs radical Arab factions, including Hamas. While Hamas' power play humiliated the Saudis, which took pride in mediating the creation of the Palestinian unity government through February's Mecca Agreement, it also alarms the authorities in Egypt and Jordan, who face political challenges from Islamist parties in their own countries...
...Prince Saud told TIME on Wednesday that four days of renewed Palestinian fighting had jeopardized the Mecca Agreement mediated by Saudi Arabia in February, which ended months of internal clashes and established a Palestinian national unity government. "If fighting continues, and spreads, and the government falls, then that would be catastrophic for the cause of peace," said Prince Saud, whose government is taking a lead in promoting a new peace effort...
...TIME: Does the fighting jeopardize the Mecca Agreement [creating the Palestinian unity government] negotiated by Saudi Arabia...
...order for a leader far stronger than Palestinian Interior Minister Hani Kawasmeh. Kawasmeh, a career civil servant rather than a tough-guy commander of either of the two main Palestinian factions, was appointed to the position as a compromise candidate after Hamas and Fatah brokered their unity government in Mecca earlier this year. And it came as no surprise when he announced his resignation on Monday, amid a fierce resurgence of fighting between the two camps that has claimed at least eight lives since Sunday. Absent a power base of his own, Kawasmeh's prospects for integrating the fighting forces...
...Kawasmeh's failure results in part from the refusal of Fatah hardliners to cede power within the Palestinian Authority to Hamas, despite the fact that the latter won last year's Palestinian parliamentary elections. Even after their leaders agreed to a power sharing arrangement in Mecca last fall, many Fatah officials have done their best to make it fail - perhaps encouraged by the U.S., which has refused to have any relations with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, and has made isolating the Islamist ruling party a focus of its Middle East policy...