Hamas Elections Solidify Split from Palestinian Authority
Then the “Arab Spring” came to Syria, home base of the external leadership. Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood franchise, faced a dilemma. The Iran-led regional alliance of which it was a part was crushing an uprising at least partially led by its fellow Muslim Brothers in Syria.
Hamas made its choice — in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, Iranian donations have rapidly depleted. The external leadership has scattered in a number of directions from Damascus: Meshaal is in Qatar; Mousa Abu Marzook is in Cairo; Imad Alami has returned to Gaza. There are members as far afield as Istanbul and Khartoum.
The internal leadership, meanwhile, has increased revenues from the smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza since the fall of Mubarak in Egypt. This is helping to make up for the decline in Iranian support.
Reports suggest that control of the movement’s budget and of the Qassam Brigades has now been removed from Meshaal, though he retains his formal position as the movement’s overall leader. The internal leadership also headed off an attempt by Meshaal to cobble together a “reconciliation” deal with the West Bank PA in February. Such a deal would have required Hamas to dismantle the structures of its government in Gaza.
Palestinian nationalism has traditionally favored words and gestures over concrete deeds. This is one of the sources for its historical failure to produce anything much tangible of note. Palestinian Islamism has a different approach: in line with the traditional strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood, it understands the importance of concrete, patient building on the ground.
This does not mean that Hamas in Gaza has lost sight or will lose sight of the maximalist ideological goals of the movement. It does mean, however, that the split in the Palestinian national movement should now finally be internalized as a long-term development. The more formidable, serious element of that movement is in control of Gaza. The Islamist one-party statelet in Gaza, in turn, is allied with the trend that is proving the major beneficiary of the Arab upheavals of 2011 — namely, Sunni Islamism.
If the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power in Egypt, Hamas-controlled Gaza may yet become a point of strategic importance as a friction point with Israel, which could lead to broader tensions.
I wonder to what extent the Iranian nuclear threat is influencing Hamas and PA. Those missiles would kill many Palestinians and destroy much of the land they claim.
It would make sense for them to back Israel on this. The political effect of Abbas coming out against Iranian nukes would be devestating. Not that it will happen.
I read somewhere an interview with an Israeli soldier manning one of the Arrow batteries. He said that his orders were to shoot down any missile aimed at population centers including Palestinian areas.
The whole situation reminds me of an angry divorced couple forced to live in the same house. Occasionally they slip into bed together but pretend it isnt happening.
The problem seems not to be the takeover, but the takeover of the takeover.
Once power is consolidated, the real predators swoop in to seize the gains.
State bureaucrats then keep funding the fiction of a past arrangement.
Why do apparatchniks keep the fiction alive?
Is it as simple as keeping their jobs? Keeping the money flowing?
I’ve met people in Cairo from Gaza. There were surprised at how women dressed in Cairo compared to Gaza. That’s like a Nazi saying a neo-Nazi isn’t very Nazi.
Greetings:
I subscribe to Fouad Ajami’s pronouncement that those those are the lands of “I against my brother; my brother and I against our cousin; and, my cousin, my brother and I against the stranger.
Islam is the millstone. If your plan doesn’t include undermining or eradicating Islam, you don’t have a plan. You have a hope.
so, the islamic terrorists in Gaza who call themselves Hamas are upset because they are not viewed as sufficiently different from the islamic terrorists who call themselves the Palestinian Authority and are receiving support from the islamic terrorist Muslim Brotherhood instead of the islamic terrorists in Iran.
Sorry, but a rose is still a rose no matter what you call it and a terrorist is still a terrorist no matter what they call themselves.
vvbozesum http://woolrich-parka3.webnode.it/