BICOM

Key Points

• Indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians look increasingly likely to re-commence in the near future. However, the process will be overshadowed by the ongoing rift in the Palestinian national movement, and Hamas’s success at maintaining its rule in the Gaza Strip. Reconciliation negotiations between Fatah and Hamas appear to be stalled.
• Differences exist within Hamas regarding the diplomatic process, but ideological radicalism from below and the influence of Iran and Syria from above serve to militate against any more pragmatic trends gaining the upper hand in the movement. As Hamas seeks to replicate Hezbollah’s model in Gaza, so the movement’s reliance on Iran in particular is becoming more pronounced.
• Hamas is currently in the midst of a period of rearmament and re-building, making an early resumption of hostilities between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza unlikely. However, in the longer term, Hamas-controlled Gaza is developing the capability to threaten Israel’s home front again, and the possibility exists that Hamas might act to sabotage any progress toward peace.

Introduction

Wednesday’s announcement by the Arab League that it will support indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians makes it increasingly likely that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will now agree to engage in the process. Overshadowing this development is the ongoing rift in the Palestinian national movement, and Hamas’s success at maintaining its rule in the Gaza Strip. Egyptian efforts to reconcile Fatah and Hamas have run aground, although sporadic reports indicate efforts are ongoing to reach an agreement. Each side blames the other for the failure. The Gaza Strip remains under blockade, economically depressed and isolated, but Hamas faces no serious internal challenge to its authority. This article will look at recent developments within the Hamas organisation and within the Gaza Strip, and assess the ongoing threat posed by Hamas to the peace process.

Internal developments in Hamas

Differences exist within Hamas with regard to the peace process and the movement’s more general strategy.  In the past, the main differences have often been portrayed as between the Damascus-based overall leadership, and the supposedly more pragmatic leadership inside Gaza. This view has some merit. In a recent interview with Der Spiegel , Gaza-based Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar admitted that negotiations over a prisoner exchange deal to return captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit had been a source of disagreement between himself and Hamas’s leader in Damascus, Khaled Meshaal. Zahar said the collapse of the agreement, which he had supported, had damaged his personal standing in the organisation. But disagreements between Gaza and Damascus leaderships are only one of several dynamics affecting the movement’s direction.  In addition to the Gaza and Damascus leaderships, more radical rank and file elements in Gaza, and the movement’s state backers in Damascus and Tehran, have input into the direction of the movement.

Over the course of 2009, statements by senior movement figures led to hopes that Hamas might be evolving in a direction which would make it able to become a participant in the diplomatic process. In mid-June, 2009, Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyyeh said that he would support any real proposal to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967-borders with Jerusalem as its capital. In a June speech, Khaled Mesh’al called for the establishment as a minimum of a Palestinian state on the 1967-borders with full sovereignty, right of return and the removal of checkpoints.

These positions still fell far short of the Quartet’s requirements for involvement in the peace process, which are the abandoning of violence, recognition of Israel and commitment to existing agreements.  It is also not clear the extent to which these statements were intended purely for public relations purposes, or if they reflect genuine developments in Hamas. 

Whilst these statements may point to the existence of more ‘moderate’ trends within Hamas, these elements do not have complete domination of the movement.  In the last elections to the Shura Council, Hamas’s 40 member governing body, in August 2008, younger field operatives from the movement’s armed wing made significant gains. In the 2008 elections, out of 23 representatives elected to the council from Gaza, only four were associated with the political leadership of the movement. The remainder were activists associated with the military wing of the movement.  These individuals, such as Qassam Brigades commander Ahmed Ja’abari, the Salafi Sheikh Nizar Rayyan (later killed in Operation Cast Lead) and al-Qassam northern brigade commander Ahmad al-Ghandour, are associated with hard-line positions. They reject engagement with Israel and any solution short of that outlined in Hamas’s charter – namely, the creation of a state based on Islamic law in place of, rather than alongside, Israel.

Hamas’s military strategy failed in Operation Cast Lead. This may have led to a subsequent decline in the standing of figures associated with the military wing of the movement and with the extreme Islamist ideas with which they are associated.  Hamas is understood to have undertaken a large-scale review of its military doctrine. Certainly, there appears to be no immediate danger of the current Hamas political leadership losing control of the movement. But equally, the strong presence of radicals in movement institutions will tend to militate against any progress in Hamas towards greater moderation. 

In addition to pressure from below tending against moderation, the Hamas leadership is also under pressure from above. Hamas is generally considered to have become more dependent on both Iran and Syria following Operation Cast Lead. To upgrade its military capabilities to approach those of Hezbollah, Hamas needs to maintain the support of Tehran and Damascus. According to senior diplomatic sources, both powers are understood to oppose Palestinian reunification. The maintenance of a separate and rival Palestinian authority under their influence in the Gaza Strip provides them with an effective veto over the successful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a sign that Iran and Syria’s relationship remains strong, the countries projected a common front last week with a warm visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.

Gaza after Cast Lead: Poverty and increasing internal repression

Recent visitors to the Gaza Strip describe an economically depressed reality. Rising drug abuse constitutes a particularly acute problem. From above, meanwhile, Hamas is gradually imposing a more and more stringent form of Islamic rule in the Strip. 

This change is being felt in the very fabric of daily life in Gaza. A transition of the status of Islamic observance from social norm to legal compulsion is under way. The most obvious sign of this is the creation of the new ‘Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice’ security force, which operates under the command of the Ministry of the Waqf (Islamic Endowment). This force is tasked with enforcing Islamic codes of behavior.

Hamas is also using more familiar methods of increasing public dependence on the authorities. Preferential access to desperately needed social services for those close to the rulers of the Strip is becoming more apparent, according to a senior European diplomat. Increasingly, Hamas’s ample social welfare budgets are channeled through special banking and insurance institutions, such as the recently established ‘Islamic National Bank’.

These examples point to a process in which something resembling an Islamist enclave has emerged in Gaza since the Hamas coup in June, 2007. 

Whilst the Hamas leadership succeeded in reimposing their authority in Gaza after Operation Cast Lead, the poverty and isolation of Gaza, combined with the relatively improved economic situation in the West Bank, may erode Hamas’s popularity in the longer term. The movement expected the release of Gilad Shalit, in return for the freeing of a large number of Palestinian terrorist prisoners, to deliver a major boost to its standing among the Palestinians. The collapse of the deal has left Hamas vulnerable to accusations that it has failed to score any significant achievements.

Gaza appears to be increasingly dependent on outside support to maintain itself.  The recently issued budget for the coming year totaled $540 million, of which only $60 million was set to be raised from local taxation. It is assumed that a considerable part of the remainder comes from Iran.  The construction by Egypt of a barrier intended to prevent smuggling between northern Sinai and Gaza is likely to worsen the economic difficulties facing Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Hamas’s rearmament

Hamas has been busily re-arming since Operation Cast Lead. This is despite a notable Egyptian effort to clamp down on smuggling into Gaza in recent months. Internal production of weaponry such as the Qassam 3 rocket has also re-commenced. Hamas is rumored to have brought in longer range Fajr-5 rockets via the tunnel system between northern Sinai and Gaza, as well as new anti-tank weapons, according to local sources. Hamas has, since Operation Cast Lead, test-fired a rocket that can reach Tel Aviv. 

The considerable damage inflicted on Hamas’s military infrastructure during Operation Cast Lead, and the undoubted war-weariness of the population, make an early resumption of violence between Hamas and Israel unlikely. 

Nevertheless, in the longer term, Hamas, with Syrian and Iranian support, is developing the capability to once again launch rocket barrages at Israel’s home front, which would provoke another major confrontation. In the West Bank, Hamas has been suppressed and currently maintains a semi-clandestine existence. However, there remains a serious possibility that the movement could act both in the West Bank and from Gaza to try to undermine the stability that would need to accompany a successful diplomatic process. 

Conclusion

Hamas’s hold on Gaza, subsidised by Iran, is currently in no danger and Palestinian reconciliation appears to be unlikely. Within Hamas, there is some evidence of trends inclining tentatively in the direction of engagement with Israel. However, these are held back by forces from the rank and file of the movement and from Hamas’s state backers in Tehran and Damascus, who wish to keep the movement on the path of radicalism and militancy. For the foreseeable future, Hamas and its Gaza fiefdom will overshadow the diplomatic process between Israelis and Palestinians. An imminent resumption of violence by Hamas is unlikely, given the extensive task of rebuilding and re-arming faced by the movement. But the threat that Hamas could activate itself to destroy the atmosphere of calm necessary for any negotiating process remains a real one.

Further Reading

BICOM Spotlight: Gaza Facts & Analysis