Abbas, who heads the mainstream nationalist Fatah movement, was in Cairo Monday in talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a day after he held similar discussions with the monarch of the other Arab powerhouse, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz.

Apparently taking the cue from the successful Lebanese accord in Doha, which ended an 18-month crisis and resulted in the election of a president in Beirut, leaders of the rival Palestinian factions last week agreed to resolve their disputes peacefully.

But unlike the Arab differences that emerged in the wake of the Lebanese crisis between the pro-Western ruling majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition, the Arab power players are said to be supporting a Palestinian reconciliation without dispute or reservation.

Analysts say the Lebanese pact, reached last month under Arab League sponsorship, had begun to ease the polarization between regional camps – U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and Syria and Iran on the other – and thus paved the way for an agreement to launch a Palestinian dialogue with the goal of forming a new unity government.

Although the Syrian-Iranian alliance favors Hamas and Washington's Arab allies have been backing Abbas' Palestinian Authority (PA), they have nevertheless taken a more compromising stance than they did over Lebanon, a factor that might also make it easier for the rival Palestinian factions to make peace with each other.

Until last Wednesday, when Abbas offered unconditional dialogue with Hamas, the Palestinian president had refused even to talk to the Islamist group until it first ceded its control of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, which swept the January 2006 legislative elections, violently overthrew the Fatah-led PA from the coastal strip in June last year, after which Abbas dismissed the unity government led by Hamas' Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and formed a parallel administration in the West Bank under Salam Fayyad's premiership.

Haniya immediately welcomed Abbas' offer for reconciliation talks, promising to be flexible, and called for confidence-building measures from the factions, as well as for Arab League sponsorship "as it did with our Lebanese brothers."

The Saudi king, in talks with Abbas on Sunday, agreed that Palestinian negotiations be conducted under Arab League supervision to take advantage of momentum forged by their success over Lebanon.

Some Palestinian commentators say that Abbas may have had a change of heart and called for dialogue to boost his standing at home following growing opposition to his peace negotiations with Israel, which have not progressed since the United States re-launched their talks in November despite promises to reach a peace deal before the end of the year.

In fact, his call to reopen channels with Hamas – offered on the 41st anniversary of the June 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories – seems to have already boosted Abbas' popularity, while Hamas' has fallen, according to a public opinion poll released on Monday.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research said its poll revealed that 46 percent questioned were satisfied with Abbas' performance and 37 percent with Haniya, adding that if elections were to be held now, Abbas would get 52 percent support, while Haniya would get 40 percent.

The center said this reversal in the trend from three months ago was linked to Abbas' call for reconciliation talks with Hamas.

However, analysts warn that to reunite might take longer than the Palestinians expect, taking into consideration a number of confidence-building measures that may be needed and the Israeli factor.

Israeli officials, preoccupied with corruption scandals and an internal political crisis of their own, have reacted negatively to Palestinian talk of reunifying and would reconsider the value of their own negotiations with the PA if Abbas unites with Hamas, which Israel and the United States regard as a terrorist organization.

Haniya on Monday told reporters that Israeli resistance could delay a Hamas-Fatah dialogue and warned that it "may take a long time" before reconciliation is sealed. "Things are still at the beginning," he said.

Palestinian officials said the first steps that should be taken revolve around ending the factions' media incitement campaigns against each other and then to release each others' prisoners in Gaza and the West Bank.

Reports from the Palestinian territories said both sides have already instructed their media to stop incitement, and low-level talks between the feuding parties have already taken place in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, over the past two days.

A joint statement, signed by Palestinian ambassador Hikmat Zeid and Hamas representative Khalid Alamy, on Monday said the meetings had restored "an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect."

The talks, which are being hosted in Senegal because it is currently heading the Organization of the Islamic Conference, were intended to be the first in a series of reconciliation meetings.

Yet aides traveling with Abbas said Monday that no date has been set for high-level negotiations and no decisions have been reached on releasing Hamas detainees in the West Bank.