* Nakba day protests seen as historic moment by Palestinians
* For now, Hamas among groups backing non-military approach
* Fate of protest movement seen linked to Hamas-Fatah unity
By Tom Perry
RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 16 (Reuters) - Palestinians have declared Sunday's protests on Israel's borders a historic moment in the Middle East conflict, a turning point inspired by Arab revolts that could set the tone for more activism to come.
Coming three weeks after rival Palestinian groups agreed to end four years of internal conflict, leading Palestinians say the protests have injected new hope into their national struggle as the U.S.-led peace process has ground to a complete halt.
Some predict more and bigger protests in the run up to September, when, barring a miraculous breakthrough in negotiations, President Mahmoud Abbas says he will ask the U.N. General Assembly to recognise a Palestinian state.
Others say it is too early to predict a new Intifada, or uprising, among Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. First, they must be convinced they have something to gain from rising up for a third time against a more powerful adversary.
The Palestinians who massed at Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon, and breached the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, have given a huge morale boost to their compatriots in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and beyond.
"There is a sense of solidarity and unity and that is a source of empowerment," said Hanan Ashrawi, a leading member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. "The movement of non-violent protest will continue," she said.
Though at least 13 people were killed, the protests strengthened the case of those who back unarmed confrontation with Israel and highlighted the cause of a refugee diaspora which had long seemed marginalised.
Israel has steadfastly refused to countenance any mass return of refugees, saying it would destroy the Jewish state.
The demonstrators were marking the Nakba, when the Palestinians commemorate the loss of their homes in the 1948 war that resulted in the creation of the state of Israel and the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
"The Palestinians have discovered the power of popular, peaceful resistance," said Mustafa Barghouti, an independent Palestinian politician who has long advocated non-armed activism, or "popular resistance", by the Palestinians.
Popular resistance in the West Bank has evolved as a result of what activists see as the failure of both the peace talks pursued by Abbas and the armed confrontation employed by Hamas.
The approach, according to Barghouti and others, is gaining more support as part of a strategy that aims to win foreign backing for the Palestinian cause while bringing about Israel's international isolation.
"KNOCKING ON THE DOOR"
For now, even Hamas appears to have swung behind the idea that the weapons are best left at home. The Islamist group did not return fire when Israeli troops used force to drive protesters away from the Gaza border with Israel on Sunday.
Medics in Gaza, governed by Hamas since it seized control from Abbas in 2007, said around 100 people were wounded by Israeli fire.
"The Palestinians have united around the idea of peaceful popular, struggle. This is one of the results of the unity agreement," Barghouti said, referring to the deal brokered by Egypt that aims to end the feud between Abbas's Fatah and Hamas.
Translating that agreement into reality will help the Palestinians to mobilise bigger and more frequent protests this year, said Palestinian political commentator Hany al-Masri.
"So far, there is still only an atmosphere of reconciliation and not real reconciliation," he said. "The Palestinians fear that an Intifada could turn into chaos as happened before. They do not want Intifadas without results," he added.
But to Palestinians, the situation they face today appears much better than that which confronted them a month ago. Then, the idea of Fatah-Hamas reconciliation appeared pure fantasy. Mohammad Barakeh, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, said the Palestinian protests had added a new element to Middle East politics that he believed had been determined for too long purely by U.S. and Israeli interests.
"There is a new agenda, the agenda of the Arab revolutions and the reach of the Palestinian people, the refugees, who are knocking on the door of their nation to return to it," he said.
"Yesterday was a day that forms an important crossroads in the history of the Palestinian people," he said. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
