The Palestinians certainly have a reason to celebrate: The Mecca Agreement is paving the way to establishing a government of national unity and ending the bloody struggle between Hamas and Fatah. Palestinians now hope that the international boycott of their government will be ended, that international help will be flowing again and that the economic situation of the Palestinian territories will improve again.

It's still far from clear whether that will actually happen. Foreigners -- including the US and the EU -- did not impose the boycott because they didn't like the makeup of the Palestinian government, but because they didn't find its political direction acceptable. The Islamist Hamas disqualified itself mainly because of an unwillingness to respect agreements with Israel that had been made by the late Yasser Arafat and by an unwillingness to throw overboard its political program, which still talks about Israel's destruction.

This made it impossible for Israel to accept the government that was formed a year ago. Europeans and Americans felt that they could not support a government that does not feel bound to the peace process -- no matter how little of it remains because of Israeli actions.

A government of national unity is certainly step in the right direction, because it includes representatives of Fatah and supporters of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, who openly supports the peace process. But Hamas members still belong to this government and it will be led by Hamas Premier Ismail Haniyeh while the Islamists haven't given even the slightest sign that they're willing to deviate from their current policies.

The Palestinians are hoping that peace negotiations with Israel -- led by Abbas and tolerated by Haniyeh -- will begin. That's a strange construct and nobody really knows, where it's going and what position is the truly valid one. That's probably reason enough for Israel to reject negotiations and prolong the political limbo in the region indefinitely.

The outside world now has two options: It can accept the status quo and find a formula similar to the one employed by the US vis-a-vis the Lebanese government, when it still included Hezbollah representatives, Washington declared that there were still contacts with the Lebanese government, but not with its Hezbollah members. It's a position that led nowhere in Lebanon and that will be hard to transfer to the Palestinian government. The second option is keeping up the pressure on the Palestinians. In that case, Mecca was nothing more than a brief flare-up of unjustified hope.

Middle East expert Peter Philipp is Deutsche Welle's chief correspondent (win).