Just in time for the beginning of my annual “Israel and the Middle East” course this week:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement said on Sunday it would have to re-evaluate its reconciliation pact with the Islamist Hamas group following the rejection of a Fatah visit to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip last week.

In a statement, Fatah’s Central Committee said Hamas’ behavior showed it was not interested in the implementation of the reconciliation agreement signed in Cairo last year, which included the formation of a unity government and the holding of a parliamentary election on May 4.

…

Hamas in turn accused Fatah of reneging on the Egyptian-brokered deal to end four years of bitter rivalry that has split the Palestinian national movement.

It said Abbas was putting peace talks with Israel, taking place in Jordan, ahead of Palestinian unity. Negotiators are searching for a way to revive direct negotiations that have been suspended for over a year.

The fragile reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah always seems to be on the verge of collapse … but that hasn’t seemed to matter very much since reconciliation hasn’t really yield a whole lot of practical outcomes for anyone. To be sure, it’s better than outright fighting between the two groups. But it’s not as though they’ve seemed to get any closer to collaborative governing or negotiating. Nor is it entirely clear what a collapse of the reconciliation agreement would mean … apart from a move to return to the table to discuss renewing or restarting the reconciliation process. At times, the intra-Palestinian negotiations really feels a whole lot like the Israeli/Palestinian negotiations.