Hamas takeover in Gaza; diplomatic stasis continues

Some good, if very sobering, reporting on the events in Gaza from AP’s Sarah el Deeb is here.
Doubtless JWN readers are aware that yesterday and today there were fateful battles in Gaza during which the US-backed and US-armed Fateh forces were routed by the better disciplined and better organized forces loyal to Hamas. There have also been some less decisive clashes in the West Bank, where Fateh is relatively much stronger (though no better organized) than in Gaza.
Deeb writes that Fateh head, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,

    fired the Hamas prime minister and said he would install a new government, replacing the Hamas-Fatah coalition formed just three months ago. Abbas’ decrees, which he issued in Ramallah [in the West Bank], won’t reverse the Hamas takeover of Gaza. Instead, his moves will enable Fatah to consolidate its control over the West Bank, likely [as she claims] paving the way for two separate Palestinian governments.
    At a news conference in Gaza City early Friday, deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh rejected Abbas’ declaration, calling it “hasty” and saying he would maintain the unity government. Haniyeh said the situation was “not suitable for unilateral decisions.”
    He said the Hamas militia would impose law and order “firmly, decisively and legally.” He also rejected the idea of a Palestinian state in Gaza only, run by Hamas.
    In Damascus, one of the exiled leaders of Hamas, Moussa Abu Marzouk, also rejected setting up an Islamic state there. “Gaza will remain Gaza and there will be no changes in its future and will continue to be linked to the West Bank,” he said.

Sarah El Deeb is not the only commentator in the Anglosphere– and perhaps elsewhere?– who has started to write about the possibility of Gaza becoming even more deeply politically split off from the West Bank. The two territories have already been functionally split from each other for several years, due to Israel’s refusal to honor agreements mandating the nearly free flow of goods and persons between them. All diplomatic agreements regarding the OPTs have meanwhile stressed again and again that the two territories form “one political unit”, but of course that hasn’t stopped Israel from trying to split them apart, for many years– and nor has it stopped Israel from strying to split East Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank, and indeed from dividing the rest of the West Bank into a large number of sometimes hermetically sealed-off tiny cantons (or large-ish prisons.)
Anyway, the fears– or possibilities, or in some cases desires– that are currently being expressed in much of the Anglosphere center on the possibility of the emergence of a “Hamastan” in Gaza. I guess some western commentators think the name sounds cute and indicates how “in style” they are? They use the term despite the insistence of the leaders of the elected Hamas plurality in the Palestinian parliament that this is absolutely not their intention…
Deeb wrote:

    Fatah’s old demons — corruption, petty quarreling, lack of leadership — led to its dismal performance in Gaza. While disciplined Hamas systematically hoarded weapons, Fatah’s Gaza leader, Mohammed Dahlan, preferred travel and West Bank politics to preparing for the inevitable showdown with the Islamic militants. Dahlan returned Thursday from Egypt, where he stayed several weeks after knee surgery. But instead of going to Gaza, he headed for Ramallah.
    Many West Bank Palestinians, watching the fall of Gaza on their TV screens, pinned the blame on Abbas, whom they see as indecisive and detached. During Hamas’s assaults in Gaza this week, no prominent Fatah leader was in the coastal strip to take command.
    “Hamas has leadership, a goal, an ideology and funding,” said Gaza analyst Talal Okal. “Fatah has neither leadership, nor a goal, a vision or money.”

The Guardian’s Ian Black had these pieces of reaction from respected (but generally secularist) Palestinian commentators:

    “The government will remain, but it does not govern. It will be there, but is incapable of doing its job,” predicted Bir Zeit university’s Ali al-Jarbawi. “The situation will be completely paralysed.”
    Palestinians see the Gaza crisis as the disastrous outcome of years of failure: of the Oslo peace process, Hamas’s electoral win and the international sanctions imposed as a result. “If you have two brothers put into a cage and deprive them of basic essential needs for life, they will fight,” said the Palestinian foreign minister, Ziad Abu Amr. Many say the Palestinian Authority is already effectively dead.

Al Jazeera’s English website featured a story saying that UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon was considering the possibility of despatching a UN force to Gaza:

    Ban said Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, had raised the idea with him in a phone conversation on Tuesday and noted that Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, had also brought it up.
    “I need to consider more in detail with the countries concerned,” he said…

That Jazeera story also noted that many Fateh fighters had either fled to Egypt or surrendered en masse to the Hamas side, which is what I’d expected.
Haaretz’s Aluf Benn is reporting that,

    In the wake of the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, United States said Thursday that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush will now work to prevent the violence from spilling over to the West Bank. The U.S. therefore aims to accelerate the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to allow Abbas to present some achievements.

H’mmm. Wouldn’t you say it’s about three (or 30) years too late to suddenly say, “Oh, we have to give Abu Mazen some diplomatic achievements?”
Anyway, Benn goes on:

    Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also intends to tell Bush that Hamas’s coup d’etat must be contained in the Gaza Strip, and not allowed to occur in the West Bank as well, a government official told Haaretz on Thursday.
    The American administration is also interested in improving living conditions in the West Bank to demonstrate to the Palestinians that they are better off under Fatah than Hamas.

Benn notes that Hamas’s takeover in Gaza will dominate the discussions the two very lame ducks– Olmert and Bush– will have when Olmert goes to the White House next Tuesday:

    in this context, Olmert will discuss the possibility of deploying a multinational force in Gaza with both Bush and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The security cabinet, however, has not yet decided on its stance regarding the deployment of such a force, and will address the issue only after Olmert returns…

So there you have it: US-fueled death and destruction in Palestine; a continuing complete stasis in the peace negotiations; and the UN and the world community it represents is expected once again to stand aside and wait on the pleasure of this government in Israel whose only imperatives seem to be (a) to somehow hang on in office, and (b) to obstruct any meaningful peace negotiations while Israeli concrete-mixers continue their transformation of the West Bank into a vast network of lavish, Israelis-only settlements punctuated by large numbers of hellish Palestinian Bantustans.
There really is a better way to end this state of fearfulness and violence in Israel/Palestine, and to bring security, hopefulness, and a decent life to everyone concerned. Engaging seriously in negotiations over how to build a peaceful, equality-based social order among all these people– whether in two states of equal standing, or in a single binational state– is the place to start.

31 thoughts on “Hamas takeover in Gaza; diplomatic stasis continues”

  1. So there you have it: US-fueled death and destruction in Palestine….
    Hmmm. So this is simply “US-fueled” and Israeli “obstruct[ion of] any meaningful peace negotiations….”?
    But one must ask where the superior dicipline and organization – and most important weapons, ammunition and explosives – came from?
    Talal Okal tells us that Hamas has “leadership, a goal, an ideology and funding” that Fatah lacks. Fair enough. But where does that funding come from, and from where did the hoarded weapons that Sara el Deeb speaks of come? Particularly important questions considering the fact that the Palestinians of Gaza have been “put into a cage and deprive[d]…. of basic essential needs for life,” as Palestinian foreign minister, Ziad Abu Amr says. Seems it might be just as easy, if not easier (if not more moral) to smuggle those basic essentials than to smuggle weapons.
    Hamastan may sound cute, but the effort is no less cute than terms such as “hasbarista” or IOF, is it? At any rate, I might question the assertion that “the leaders of the elected Hamas plurality in the Palestinian parliament” are insisting that the implication is not their intention. Just to quote Niizar al-Rayyan on Hamas TV: “Hamas will open its arms to those in the security forces who are willing to convert to God.” Seems pretty clear to me that al-Rayyan, at least, is still pretty much in line with the Hamas Covenant.

  2. For months I have seen press reports that Fatah — with the support of the US and Israel — was planning a coup to oust Hamas and install a Palestinian Pinochet.
    Now that Hamas has beaten the conspirators at their own game we hear cries of anguish from Israel and its supporters.
    If Fatah had crushed Hamas the press would be filled with reports of what a great victory for “democracy” this was.

  3. “Hamas will open its arms to those in the security forces who are willing to convert to God.”
    hey, if the Gazans want barber shops, nightclubs, music stores, interest charging banks and internet cafes shut down, that’s their business.

  4. Helena –
    If (Big If) the US and western governments had been willing to work with a Hamas government after elections (which the US so facilely equates and promotes as democracy), do you think we’d be looking at a different situation now? Did even worsening economic conditions exacerbated by the stoppage of aid funds bring things to a fever pitch?
    Or was a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas for control inevitable?

  5. How do we get back to the negotiation stage? Hamas and Fatah are currently at war with each other; how can they go back to negotiations for a new government? You point out that current U.S. and Israeli policy of just propping up one side to try to beat the other side only perpetuates the carnage. But I think JES has a point that the Hamas side is getting outside support as well. Shouldn’t we be insisting that both sides of outside support cease their exacerbation of the crisis? We need both the U.S./Israel and Iran to be transparent about all the military aid they have put into this proxy war, and then put a moratorium on military aid. Then all humanitarian aid sanctions have to be lifted, for both Hamas and Fatah controlled territory, to alleviate the anarchic conditions going on in the occupied territories.
    BTW: This question may be moot, but I still want to ask. How did this new fighting start? A couple of weeks ago, Fatah and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and fighting had calmed down in the Territories. Why did fighting flare up again all of the sudden?
    Also, mainstream U.S. reporting talk of the West Bank as if it was one solid political unit firmly in control of Fatah. Aren’t there all these Israeli checkpoints all over the WB, manned by Israeli soldiers? How come they haven’t gotten caught up in the fighting? And what about the settlements? Aren’t they affected by the fighting?
    annemm, I don’t know how inevitable this confrontation was; I wonder if the confrontation could’ve been fought politically instead of militarily had everyone made different decisions. But I do think that the West should’ve gone ahead and worked with the elected government. Not because I like Hamas, because the West had no choice. Hamas was what the Palestinian people chose, and the rest of the world had to respect that choice as distasteful as seemed. When George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, I did not support any coup against him; I went along with his presidency and kept on campaigning for change. It’s the same with Hamas. I think this constant diplomatic contact would’ve discouraged extremist ideology in Hamas by making that ideology unnecessary.
    I do hope “Hamastan” gets dropped soon as a simple minded catchphrase. I agree with JES that Hasbarista is just as childish.
    Right now I’m just left dumbfounded. I really don’t know how the future is going to turn out. I can only hope that some mutual solution can be found, instead of the situation getting drowned in waves of cheerleading for one side to destroy the other.

  6. I think that it is interesting that throughout the “so-called” Middle East peace process the Israeli’s have done everything within their power to undermine Mr. Abbas, that now when faced with the prospect of a Hamas led government they are willing to support him. I am afraid that it is too little, too late for Mr. Abbas. The Hamas led government is a direct result of the foot-dragging and disingenuous negotiations that Israel and the US have been engaged end trying to placate the Palestinians while the Israelis continue to cement their land grab and occupation of lands taken in the 1967 war. If the Israeli’s had bargained in good faith in the past maybe we would not be in the position we are today.
    The occupation has not made Israel safer and it has only inflamed the passions of the Palestinians and the Arab world. Before the Hamas victory in elections, Israel had ample opportunity to negotiate with the moderate Palestinians, but instead chose to stonewall the process and continue to build settlements, settlements that violate the letter and the spirit of the peace process. However, due to their lobbying efforts and media domination they have been able to present the occupation as being humane and in the best interest of the Palestinians. The Palestinians are too barbaric to be able to govern themselves and require the benevolent assistance of the Israelis to save them from themselves. This picture will again be played out in the main stream press as the violence intensifies.
    False history gets made all day, any day,
    the truth of the new is never on the news – Adrienne Rich
    The Disputed Truth

  7. A few thoughts here, as someone who spent a month in Gaza in 2000 as an intern at the GCMHP-what I observe are a few things:
    a. growing Islamist militancy/radicalism/anti-western violence amplifying across the Middle East. What is tragic about this, and some may wholeheartedly disagree, is that this situation has been brewing for nearly a year-Daud Kattab wrote an exemplary piece on the need for peacekeeping in the Gaza Strip, which I supported.
    What is tragic about this situation is that the region is acculturating itself to violence. Islamist hegemony is definately worrying-the left ought to sincerely heed this-note the censorship already being imposed on scholars by Hamas, etc.
    b. If anyone expects this to abate soon, they are sorely mistaken-not a fatalist, however I do see it as absolutely _far too late_ for Western involvement in Gaza. Note the abduction of Alan Johnston, the Islamist cultural terrorism taking place, i.e. threats against female journalists, etc.
    In my view, the DISINTEGRATION of the Gaza Strip could have been prevented along time ago-
    FYI,
    KDJ

  8. Having got rid of Fatah, Hamas’ future relies on its ability to achieve “monopoly of force” over the lawless clans, jihadi and AlQ groups. First optimistic sign is the reported imminent release of Alan Johnston. Next Hamas needs to put an end to rocket attacks on Israel so as not to provide any pretext for Israel to massively invade, imo.

  9. I agree, bb. If Hamas really has total control over the Gaza Strip, here’s its chance to show how well it can rule, finally. The Strip will still be mired in poverty because of the sanctions. But Hamas might still be able to bring security and stability to Gaza now that it’s there on its own. Neither Fatah nor the West will be able to deny that success in government. Also, we’ve always heard that fringe groups were firing rockets into Israel while Hamas held to a ceasefire. Here’s the chance for Hamas to shut down those factions once and for all, taking away Israel’s excuse to carry out operations in Gaza. Let’s cross our fingers about this.

  10. “Now that Hamas has beaten the conspirators at their own game we hear cries of anguish from Israel and its supporters.”
    The lesson (which neither Israel nor the U.S. will EVER learn no matter how many times they make the same mistakes): Be careful what kind of seeds you sow, because that is what determines the nature of what you will get at harvest time.

  12. It’ll depend on Hamas having a thought out political strategy. If it transpires Hamas itself is riven by irreconcilable factions with competing agendas then life will get even grimmer for the Gazans. Hubris is the biggest danger to Hamas now, imo.

  13. US/Israel Policy Algorithm Revealed:
    Step 1: Stall the 2-state solution
    Step 2: Cripple the recognized “PA”
    Step 3: Call for elections to “legitimate” recognized PA
    Step 4: Recognize the loser; refuse to deal with the winner;
    Step 5: Watch “PA” lose half its territorial control;
    IF sizeof(PA) > 2 people
    REPEAT from STEP1
    ELSE
    Print:
    “There is no representative partner for peace”!

  14. Inkan brought up an interesting question about the West Bank. I think that a lot has to do with the fact that, not only are the secularists more entrenched there, but the standard of living is much higher. I found Yoram Binur’s report last night on Channel 2 News quite illuminating in this regard. You can find it here (although there is no English translation:
    http://www.keshet-tv.com/VideoPage.aspx?MediaID=18233
    Of course, the whole issue of training six to 12 yearold kids in the manner shown is very disturbing, but there is something else. These kids are walking around with the preferred mkassir, or short M-16 (from the Hebrew mikutsar, or short). Those are real rifles – and they are loaded – that the kids are holding all the time and carrying around (not to mention, inadvertantly pointing at each other). According to Yoram Binur, the cost of these rifles ranges from $10,000 to over $20,000 each in the West Bank (I’m tempted to say OAT).
    Another issue that I find interesting here is that everyone is blaming the outsiders (particularly the US and Israel here). Don’t you think that the Palestinians themselves have some responsibility in what’s going on? In the case of Abu Mazen, despite whatever support he received from the US and Israel, he did a lot to show he was weak and, thus, empower Hamas in Gaza. Much of this was because his former boss was a known paranoid and made certain that he got rid of anyone around him who might pose a threat, leaving yes-men like Abbas. But Abu Mazen did have a choice, as did the people who elected him (not just a “plurality” but an absolute and significant majority, I would remind those who focus only on the parliamentary elections).
    Anyway there was a good article yesterday by Khaled Abu Toameh. (See next post)

  18. Abbas has appointed a prime minister who is apparently an independent who has been in charge of cleaning up Palestinian finances. He is reputed to be incorruptible. The US has announced funding boycott will cease once the new PA cabinet has been sworn in.
    What if ….Israel then releases a substantial number of West Bank Palestinian Fatah prisoners while keeping the Hamas prisoners incarcerated?
    If so, would that lead to the Westbankers rallying around Abbas? Might that in turn lead to serious peace negotiations between Israel and the PA under the umbrella of the Quartet, leaving Gaza out of it?
    The sight of Hamas trampling on the poster of Arafat and looting his house will not play well for Hamas on West Bank television sets, imo. Events are moving very fast over there, it’s dizzying.

  20. Crimson Ghost, a victory for Hamas is not the same as a victory for the Palestinian people.

  22. The Hamstan situation is a good reason for further separating Gaza from Israel, in term of access, fuel, water, export, etc. It is unwise to have moprtal enemies to be tightly connected and dependent. It is time to have Gaza affiliated with Egypt, like it should have been since Camp David.
    They are Arab, moslem, and have families across the border. The only jew in Gaza is the captive Israeli soldier.
    Oh, Helena, stop removing my posts. Deal with opinions you paragon of dialogue.

  23. It is time to have Gaza affiliated with Egypt
    True, Gaza was occupied by the Egyptians from 1949 to 1967. Mubarak already has enough problems with the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo…why would he want to take responsibility for their Gaza chapter?

  24. We can point our fingers at all the powers in the region, but the person(s) most to blame are the ones with their finger on trigger of the gun (literally not figuratively).

  25. Please, none of the Palestinian people want separation of Gaza from a State of Palestine. And those connections should ultimately force Israelis and Palestinians to work together. Economic integration will be very helpful in attaining peace.
    I don’t see what Abbas can hope to accomplish with his new government. This government doesn’t reflect the democratic election. The Palestinian people are going to perceive it as a Western puppet. Khaled Meshaal has made overtures to Fatah for a settlement. Fatah should respond in kind, to restore the unity government.

  27. Dorita/Dorito:
    I am not sure what your name is here. However, I find your bitter and obnoxious comments so revealing, I must thank you. A pity that you must have no other activities in your life other than to waste everyone’s time with what are not even contributions to a discussion.

  29. “So there you have it: US-fueled death and destruction in Palestine….”
    Yes, the Palestinians were simply unable to resist the US in its fueling of all that goes wrong. Because it just is never the Palestinians’ fault, is it? Always the US or Israel and the poor Palestinians simply fall into the traps the West and the Jews lay before them. I’ve heard that for decades and it simply isn’t true.

  30. Dave, I did not say the Palestinians bear no responsibility for this. I did say that the US has fueled the death and destruction in Palestine, an assertion for which there is plentiful evidence. It has done so both by cheerleading support for the inhumane and in many cases lethal suffocation/ blocade of the OPTs ever since the January 2006 elections, and by funneling in weapons and training to the highly anti-democratic Fateh forces.
    Over the longer haul the US has given very generous financial and political aid to successive Israeli governments as they have pursued the illegal settlement project in the West Bank that has forced the area’s Palestinians– of all political stripes, or none– into tightly-controlled, prison-like enclaves with almost zero possibility of pursuing a normal national economy or normal family life. This policy has certainly led to the otherwise avoidable deaths of thousands of Palestinians over the years; it has also destroyed many Palestinian institutions and the livelihoods of huge numbers of Palestinians. All with our tax dollars!
    As a US citizen, I feel a great deal of responsibility for the actions of my government– yes, more than I do for actions undertaken by other players. How about you? Do you feel any responsibility for the actions of our government?

  31. “A victory for Hamas is not the same as a victory for the Palestinian people.”
    just like the “victory” for Hezbollah last summer was not a victory for the Lebanese people.

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