[News] Will Hamas squander its Gaza victory?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Will Hamas squander its Gaza victory?

Hicham Safieddine <http://electronicintifada.net/people/hicham-safieddine>
http://electronicintifada.net/content/will-hamas-squander-its-gaza-victory/11955
<http://electronicintifada.net/people/electronic-intifada>
Beirut <http://electronicintifada.net/location/beirut>
30 November 2012

Will the latest attack on Gaza 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/gazaunderattack> spell the end of 
Hamas <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hamas> as a radical resistance 
movement?

Palestinians in Gaza had barely buried their dead and tended to their 
wounded in the wake of Israel's week-long assault when Hamas leader 
Khaled Meshaal <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/khaled-meshaal> was 
doling out concessions on the US mainstream media. The same day a 
ceasefire was announced last week, Meshaal told CNN's venomous and 
condescending Christiane Amanpour that a Palestinian state within the 
"1967 borders" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was acceptable. He went 
on to insinuate that the right of return 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/right-return> did not necessarily 
entail the actual return of refugees. Meshaal sounded more like a broken 
record of Mahmoud Abbas 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/mahmoud-abbas> than that of a 
resistance leader emerging out of a hard-fought battle ("Mashaal: I 
accept a Palestinian state on '67 borders 
<http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=293084>," /The 
Jerusalem Post/, 22 November 2012).

Since then, the political flirtation between Hamas and the Palestinian 
Authority <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestinian-authority> has 
continued unabated. The latest move was Meshaal's enthusiastic 
endorsement on Monday of Mahmoud Abbas's theatrical bid for virtual 
statehood at the UN 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/international-recognition-palestinian-state> 
(upgrading the Palestine Liberation Organization's 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/plo> observer status to that of a 
state) ("Hamas backs Abbas bid to upgrade Palestinian UN status 
<http://www.france24.com/en/20121126-hamas-meshaal-abbas-palestinian-un-status-upgrade?ns_campaign=editorial&ns_source=twitter&ns_mchannel=reseaux_sociaux&ns_fee=&ns_linkname=20121126_hamas_meshaal_abbas_palestinian_un_status&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter>," 
France 24, 26 November 2012). The Hamas-Fatah rapprochement is 
increasingly depicted by media reports as a preamble for resuming 
national reconciliation talks between the two factions now that the UN 
bid is over.

National unity <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/national-unity> 
reasonably remains a top demand for most Palestinians. But with the 
Palestinian Authority unequivocally acting as the /de facto/ native 
enforcer of Israeli occupation, unity can easily turn into impunity for 
the occupier and its agents, and co-optation for the forces fighting 
them. Achieving unity is easier said than done; previous attempts have 
failed. The future of armed resistance rests on the outcome of such 
talks, and those in turn will have to take into account the fall-out of 
Israel's latest attack on Gaza amid an evolving military and regional 
political configuration.


    Big Brotherhood

Few wars in Palestine have been as spun by all sides for political gain 
like this latest one. Having alienated many of its supporters due to its 
backing of Bashar al-Assad's 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bashar-al-assad> regime in Syria 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/syria>, Iran 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/iran> and its allies were over eager 
to take explicit credit for their military and financial support to 
Hamas and to reassert that the worthy battle is that of Palestine not 
Syria. The opposing "moderate" camp was as eager to prove that it is 
equally capable of siding with Palestinian resistance while fighting its 
former allies in Damascus.

The fact that Hamas still had one foot in each camp when the attack 
began played to the movement's favor. The highest form of support, 
military and financial, continued to flow from Iran, while diplomatic 
pressure was exerted by the new Egyptian regime seeking regional 
legitimacy to prevent a ground invasion and broker a ceasefire.

In the press conference jointly held by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/islamic-jihad> to announce the 
ceasefire, Meshaal tried to appease all actors. He thanked those in the 
"moderate" camp such as Egypt 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/egypt>, Turkey 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/turkey> and Qatar 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/qatar>, while acknowledging the role 
of Iran (Saudi Arabia was conspicuously absent from all declarations of 
gratitude by Hamas officials).

But it was clear from the press conference that Hamas' new political 
patron is Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/muslim-brotherhood>. Even the 
Islamic Jihad, which still maintains some ties with Damascus and is 
known for its closer ties to Iran, seemed more aligned with Hamas' new 
allegiance scheme when Islamic Jihad's Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah 
thanked Egypt but not Iran in his brief interjection ("Resistance says 
its word: Zionist entity defeated 
<http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=74962&cid=23&fromval=1&frid=23&seccatid=23&s1=1>," 
Al-Manar, 21 November 2012).

Both leaders made explicit reference to the positive role that Egyptian 
intelligence reportedly played. Long seen as Israel's ears and eyes in 
Gaza and Sinai <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/sinai>, it is hard to 
take for granted that this blemished Egyptian state apparatus has turned 
into a backer of armed resistance without the necessary purges from its 
ranks taking place.

Even if the new Egypt, as Hamas claimed, was as firm in warning Israel 
of a ground invasion and pushing for an agreement favorable to the 
conditions of the resistance, sooner or later, Israel and the US will 
demand that Cairo play a more active role in clamping down on the flow 
of arms. Washington's push for an increased Egyptian role in the 
prevention or proliferation of weapon smuggling will increase with the 
further sidelining of Syria and the search for alternative routes of 
weapons transport, namely via Sudan 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/sudan> towards Suez and Sinai.

With the passage of time, the Brotherhood will have to come clean on 
where it stands regarding the question of financial and military support 
for Hamas. If precedence is any indication, it will likely seek to 
maintain a /status quo/: no active collusion with Israel in return for 
pushing Hamas to reign in radical elements and future armed operations 
rather than supply the financial and military assistance needed.

With Egypt a long way from possibly developing a strong, independent 
military purged of US influence and capable of replacing Iran, Hamas 
would be taking a foolish gamble if it placed all its eggs in the Cairo 
basket. A more reasonable arrangement would be to expect Cairo to 
overlook weapons smuggling, and to keep channels open with Tehran as a 
source. An Egypt-Iran arrangement of this sort --- minus the corrupting 
Gulf links and the destabilizing Syria ones --- is a new resistance 
order Hamas can build on should the political will be there. But this 
will seems to lie somewhere else: eyeing a new round of the dangerous 
game of national unity.


    National unity trap

The Egyptian-brokered deal struck between the Hamas-led resistance 
factions and Israel suggests that a policy of containment rather than 
engagement is in the works for Gaza. In the unlikely event that Israel 
adheres to its provision, there are tangible gains to be won: the end of 
the siege <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/gaza-siege> and 
extrajudicial killings, as well as the cessation of all forms of land, 
aerial and maritime aggression.

But in return, the resistance has vowed to cease all military action 
originating from Gaza. In other words, the agreement is about 
/disengagement/, not /rules of engagement/. The former is in the spirit 
of a truce and leads to a long-term settlement, the latter in the spirit 
of a ceasefire and leads to advancing the struggle under new more 
amenable regulations.

As they stand, the current terms of agreement favor disengagement, 
linking resistance from Gaza to aggression against Gaza /alone/. This 
will further isolate the Strip from the West Bank, which has already 
disengaged from linking its struggle to aggression on Gaza.

Emotions aside, the shy protests and clashes with Zionist forces 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/anger-rises-west-bank-israel-kills-protesters/11925> 
that erupted recently in the West Bank fell short of what is expected 
from the territory where the heart of the struggle is today. Zionists 
wish Gaza would disappear off the map, but they see the West Bank 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/west-bank> as the Eldorado of 
Zionist expansion.

Without full participation of the West Bank in future resistance, Gaza's 
deterrence will fall short of turning into a long-term strategic threat. 
And national unity talks circulating today, as much as unity is needed, 
flow in that direction. Current Palestinian Authority complicity in 
consolidating occupation is beyond retribution. According to the 2011 
report submitted by Israel to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ad-hoc-liaison-committee> (a 
15-member group that includes the European Union 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/european-union>, the US, the World 
Bank <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/world-bank> and the 
International Monetary Fund <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/imf>), 
the number of joint security operations between Israel and the PA jumped 
by 118 percent in one year, with close to 3,000 "instances of 
coordination" and over 600 bilateral meeting at the police and "civil 
defense" levels taking place in 2010 alone ("Measures taken by Israel in 
support of developing the Palestinian economy and socio-economic 
structure 
<http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/3F532B57-F377-4FEF-99C8-68A810CA7AAC/0/IsraelReportAHLCApril2011.pdf>," 
State of Israel, 13 April 2011 [PDF]).

The report praises the "professionalism and skill" of the Palestinian 
security force, which managed to "escort" more than 600 Israelis out of 
Area A --- the part of the West Bank nominally under Palestinian 
Authority control --- after the latter had strayed into it. That skill 
must have been put on hold when Israeli forces conducted an extensive 
arrest campaign in the West Bank against elected Palestinian officials 
and Hamas cadres before the ink on the recent ceasefire agreement had 
dried ("Israeli forces detain MPs around West Bank 
<http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=541257>," Ma'an News 
Agency, 23 November 2012). Buoyed by Arab Gulf money and the comfort 
zone of ruling over a disengaged Gaza, Hamas might easily fall into the 
faltering footsteps of Fatah <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/fatah>, 
which has transformed itself from a popular resistance movement into the 
mutated occupation-enforcing apparatus it is today.


    Back to resistance basics

Without a clear and uncompromising roadmap to engage the West Bank in 
the resistance project and end the Palestinian Authority's stranglehold 
over it, the Hamas-Fatah rapprochement is bound to lead to co-optation 
of the worst kind. Arab resistance to Israel has historically been beset 
by a disappointing leadership that either promises victory and brings 
defeat or turns military victory into political loss. The verdict is out 
on whether the latter is the case in this war.

There is no question that Israel's latest attack on Gaza enhanced the 
resistance's deterrence capacity. The coordinated and consistent launch 
of an average 200 rockets <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/rockets> a 
day and the unprecedented strategic depth of the attacks (Tel Aviv 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/tel-aviv> and Jerusalem 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/jerusalem>) reflected a highly 
disciplined and developed resistance force --- credited by some to the 
efforts of the assassinated Ahmad al-Jabari. The movement's military 
wing was also capable of breaching Israel's broadcasting and 
telecommunications network and aired propaganda messages on both while 
releasing more than 300 media statements about the developments of battle.

The resistance is, therefore, slowly morphing into a holistic apparatus 
that is not dependent on a single person. The active participation of 
other resistance groups, namely Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the 
Liberation of Palestine <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/pflp> and 
Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades will make a unilateral decision by Hamas to 
take a more "moderate" route difficult to implement without the risk of 
internecine fighting and factionalism within Hamas' own ranks.

This is why the resistance's best bet was and remains the successful 
formula of what may be termed /unmediated deterrence/ and /mediated 
negotiations/. The first principle seeks to ensure that deterrence 
becomes fully reliant on the resistance's own military and intelligence 
strength. Deterrence through diplomacy, as was partly the case in this 
war, is another strategy but cannot be taken for granted or relied on in 
the long run.

The second principle, mediated negotiations, lays out a strict rule of 
engagement: that negotiation with the enemy is never made directly but 
through honest brokers. Whether the brokers are seen as allies (Egypt), 
or not (Germany <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/germany> brokered 
prisoner exchange deals between Hizballah and Israel) is not the issue. 
The litmus test is the reliability of the broker as a mediator and more 
importantly perhaps the /limited/ objective of negotiations: insisting 
on making incremental gains in the battle rather than setting an 
end-game designed to liquidate the resistance.

The resistance, of course, will outlive any attempt to liquidate it so 
long as Israeli occupation and apartheid 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/apartheid> exist. The risk is losing 
its cumulative momentum and progressive strength. For at this critical 
juncture of the struggle, the loss of another Ahmad al-Jabari would be 
one loss too many.

/Hicham Safieddine is a freelance journalist and researcher of the 
Middle East./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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