Hamas is getting stronger in Palestine along with the consolidation of the Islamists’ positions in the Arab Spring countries. The differences in Hamas’ and Fatah’s approaches towards Israel and their rivalry for power prevent the achievement of peace in the region bringing to nought new initiatives of the international community.
Preliminary results of Islamic rule in Gaza strip
The Palestinian-Israeli peace process has been deadlocked for the last ten years. Even the efforts of US President Barack Obama failed to achieve breakthrough in establishing an independent Palestinian state that would exist alongside Israel. However, despite the stagnation of talks, the strengthening of Hamas, an Islamist organization and the main rival of the Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) secular movements, seriously affected the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the situation inside Palestine.
Hamas’ victory in the January 2006 parliamentary elections and the armed conflict between Hamas and Fatah in the Gaza Strip in June 2007 divided the Palestinian Autonomy and resulted in the emergence of an enclave hosting radical forces by Israel’s South border.
After Hamas failed to head the unity government, it nevertheless took control of the Gaza Strip and set up an alternative Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniyeh. Amidst Israel’s blockade, it managed to maintain very low though acceptable living standards in Gaza thanks to the financial support of the Arab and Islamic countries, the ongoing UN activity in the strip and the increasing smuggling from Egypt.
Hamas substantially strengthened its military potential and held out against Israel during the Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 - early 2009.
In August 2009, Hamas managed to establish authority in the strip by setting up tight control over the Fatah members and using violence in suppressing the attempt of local Al-Qaeda supporters from the Army of the Supporters' of Allah to establish an Islamic emirate in the strip.
The Islamist movement also had luck on the propaganda field due to the criticism towards the Israeli blockade, with particular accent on the Palestinian misery, international condemnation of Israel’s use of force during the Operation Cast Lead and its raid on the Freedom Flotilla, which tried to get through the blockade in 2010.
In terms of the domestic policy, the Islamists were gradually Islamising Gaza’s everyday life by imposing Sharia law, struggling for the abidance of Islamic dress code by females and the wearing of beards by males as part of the “virtue campaign,” suppressing Western mass culture and so forth.
“Bad triangle”: Hamas–Fatah–Israel
New initiatives of the international community are necessary to resume the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
In this regard, Russia has proposed the United States, the European Union and the United Nations (its partners in Quartet of mediators on the Middle East conflict) to organise
Moscow Middle East Conference to discuss all issues concerning the relations of the Arab world with Israel, rather than stake on the meetings between Israel’s and the Palestinian National Authority’s representatives.
Experts discuss the idea to increase the number of the “quartet” participants by including regional powers and major international actors such as China and India.
But, unfortunately, even if the international community stirs up its efforts in accordance with these proposals, the differences in approaches of Hamas and Fatah towards Israel and their rivalry for power will be hindering the achievement of peace in the region.
In 1993, the Fatah movement, then headed by Yasser Arafat, officially recognised Israel’s right to existence and held talks with it seeking the establishment of the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with the capital in East Jerusalem.
Hamas, on the contrary, does not recognise Israel’s legitimacy and has declared the liberation of the entire historical Palestine to be its mission. Hamas’ irreconcilability can be explained, in many respects, by its perception of the conflict through religion.
Palestine is perceived as the Holy Land, which, according to the legends, was visited by the messenger and the prophet of God Muhammad who made a journey to heaven from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (where the Dome of the Rock is situated now). Of course, the Fatah movement comprises Muslims, not atheists, but the thing is that they lay emphasis on the importance of, specifically, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque rather than the entire Palestinian land.
However it is worth mentioning that since 2006 Hamas has been demonstrating flexibility in approaches towards Israel. Hamas proposed to establish the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, and to conclude a ten-year truce.
Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, said in 2006 that Hamas is ready to cooperate with Israel without recognising it, just like China and Taiwan cooperated with each other, and added that “no recognition does not mean war”.
At the same time, it is obvious that no matter with whom Tel Aviv concludes the agreement on the basis of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), the boarders of the Jewish settlements in Palestine have changed. Now almost 500,000 Jews live in occupied East Jerusalem and at the West Bank’s settlements.
The inability of the Fatah movement and the Israeli government to make a compromise on the settled areas, the return of the Palestinian refugees and the control over the Palestinian borders has many times resulted in the failure of the Palestinian-Israeli talks.
Hamas obviously will not make any more concessions than Fatah in the dialogue with Israel, but the talks will hardly take place since the conflict’s half- settlement at the cost of such concessions is absolutely unacceptable for Tel-Aviv.
Hamas and the Arab Spring
To assess Hamas’ prospects, it is necessary to consider not only the relations between Hamas, Fatah, Israel and the peacemaking efforts of the “quartet” members since the Arab Spring events are having a big impact on the behaviour of the Palestinian players and Israel.
An-Nahda, a mild Islamist party, won parliamentary elections in Tunisia on October 23, 2011. Islamist leaders seek to occupy leading positions in the Libyan government after the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi.
Following the civil unrest in Egypt, which had a peace treaty with Israel and allied relations with the United States, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had to resign.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood hopes to show good results at parliamentary elections to the People's Assembly of Egypt on November 28, 2011.
Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood demands that King Abdullah II review the relations with Tel Aviv (Jordan is closely connected with the United States and also has a peace treaty with Israel).
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party which earlier had declared about its intentions to become a leader in the Arab and Islamic worlds, supported Arab revolutions and sharply deteriorated its relations with Tel Aviv.
And, although, Arab Spring resulted in the weakening of the positions of President Bashar al-Assad’s, who has always helped Hamas and promoted the development of relations between the movement and Iran, in general, the incumbent secular and paramilitary elites mostly comprise Islamists.
Of course, religious and political forces in each of the aforementioned countries have their own specific characters differing through the moderateness or radicalism, but both Hamas and Israel promptly respond to the changing situation.
The strengthening of Islamists’ positions in the Arab countries will extend Hamas’ base, which has been limited to the Damascus-Teheran axis until recently.
Now it is important both for Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh to establish good relations with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey. Hamas consider the changes in the region as a dramatic political and ideological change in the development of the Arab world towards political Islam and the weakening of influence of the United States, Israel’s main ally.
“Arab revolutions have already initiated the process of solving the Palestine issue. Regimes, which fell in a number of countries, totally depended on the United States in fact. And now the United States will not have such an influence on them and the Arab world will get involved in our problem more actively,” member of the Hamas political bureau Moussa Abu Marzouk told in the interview to the Moscow News newspaper in May 2011.
To get benefits from the change in the regional situation, Hamas seeks to strengthen its position within the Palestinian autonomy.
For these ends, the agreement on forming a unity government of independent technocrats was signed in the presence of the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal and representatives of 11 Palestinian factions in Cairo on May 4, 2011.
Additionally, the agreement retained a status-quo in the security field: the Fatah units will go on controlling the West Bank, while the Gaza Strip will be controlled by Hamas. The discussion of details of the Cairo agreement’s execution continued in Russia on May 21-22, 2011. Russian Foreign Minister received the participants of the talks on May 23.
According to the poll of Israel’s Jerusalem Media & Communications Centre published in early June, 50.8% of the Palestinians want the cabinet of ministers to consist of “independent” members, 26.5% would prefer the Fatah members to dominate, while 12.5% support Hamas.
In terms of the movements’ popularity ratings, 39.2% of those polled spoke in support of Fatah and only 16.6% stood for Hamas. The gap in trust to leaders is even narrower, with 22.2% in favour of Abbas and 13.6% for Haniyeh.
It should be mentioned that the Hamas movement enjoys bigger popularity in the Gaza Strip whose citizens suffer more from the Israeli occupation and blockade and the religious and political ideas are more popular there. Fatah and Hamas are holding talks on the candidates to the new government, and if they reach an agreement, the Palestinian elections might be held in 2012.
No matter whether this attempt to reconcile with Fatah succeeds or not, the Hamas leaders hope, in the long run, to occupy the dominant position in the Palestinian National Authority. The poll conducted by the Near East Consulting international research group () in May 2010 showed that about 40% of polled Palestinians consider Islamic caliphate the best political order, 24% spoke in favour of the “Arab regime” (probably the authoritarianism was implied), 12% believe that Palestine needs Western democracy.
Under these circumstances, Abbas submitted in September 2011 an application to the United Nations on the recognisance of the independent Palestinian state and on its accession to the UN, seeking to get the support of Palestinians following the failure in talks with Israel.
The United States’ procrastination in considering the issue and Hamas’s successful October 19, 2011, deal on exchanging 1,027 Palestinians kept in Israeli prisons for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldier Gilad Shalit will only make the movement more popular in Palestine demonstrating that only they can solve the problems efficiently.
But even if Palestine becomes a partial member of the UN, it will have a short-term significance for Abbas, since the autonomy is not financially self-sufficient and lives at the expense of donors while some 59% of the West Bank’s area and border are controlled by Israel.
The events in the Arab world which will definitely make the United States establish good contacts with the new elites and Hamas’ probable return to the Palestinian unity government bodies are strengthening isolationist sentiments in Israel and consolidating the opinion of both the government and the society that the country must stick to unilateral security measures and become a “fortress” in the Middle East.
Therefore, the situation in the area of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict gives confidence to the Palestinians that the Arab world is on the verge of major changes (though it is still unclear whether the region will become more stable or consolidate itself following the changes) rather than brings hopes for a breakthrough in talks with Israel in the nearest future.
In this context, Hamas, as well as the younger and more radical generation of the Fatah leaders, will become more demanded as leaders of the Palestinian resistance.
