The road to Hamastan
From Economist.com - June 13th 2007 | RAMALLAH
Hamas and Fatah are on the verge of a civil war that could split the putative Palestinian state
BY THE end of this week, the Islamists of Hamas will have either destroyed the secular-minded Fatah in the Gaza Strip, or at least shown that they can. The relative quiet after a deadly burst of violence between the rival Palestinian parties in May was broken by a series of tit-for-tat killings that quickly got out of hand. After troops from the presidential guard of Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, fired rockets at the house of Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister, the Islamist party launched a full-scale attack. Hamas troops have taken control of most of the Gaza Strip and have chased Fatah forces out of their bases, while several top Fatah commanders have either fled Gaza or been killed.
Fatah suspended its role in the Palestinian Authority (PA) coalition government, which the two parties formed in March in an attempt to stop such fighting, and threatened to pull out altogether. But Fatah has little to bargain with. Hamas has already shown that its fighters, though less numerous, are better armed, trained and disciplined. In contrast, Fatah field commanders have been complaining loudly about their lack of equipment and leadership. Several of Fatah’s top people in Gaza have been out of the strip for weeks.
The head of an Egyptian mediating team this week threw up his hands in disgust and called on ordinary Gazans to take to the streets in protest. They, already sick of the infighting, have been stunned by the sadistic cruelty of the latest violence, which has included kneecappings, summary executions and throwing handcuffed captives off tall buildings.
But they seem powerless in the face of a conflict that has been building since Hamas ousted Fatah from the PA in an election last year. From the start, Fatah tried to prevent Hamas from getting full control of the PA security services, which are both a cornerstone of political power and a job scheme for unemployed militants, and which had become bloated with Fatah loyalists during the secular party’s long rule. Hamas countered by adding a tough, disciplined “Executive Force” of its own loyalists to the PA roster in Gaza, where it is much stronger than in the West Bank.
Fatah, which had the loyalty of the rest of the forces but no longer a means of supplying them, instead won backing from America to turn the presidential guard into an elite force to counter that of Hamas. Under the guise of strengthening Mr Abbas as a moderate Palestinian leader, America has provided $59m for training and supplying the presidential guard with non-lethal equipment. Israel has allowed through at least one shipment of weapons provided by Arab countries.
Not surprisingly, Hamas sees Western support for Mr Abbas’s troops, along with the 15-month-old Western boycott of the PA, as part of a conspiracy to force it out of power. Officially, America says it wants the presidential guard to “focus on building law and order in Gaza” and to see border crossings secured so goods for the strip’s 1.4m residents can be traded. But occasionally the elite force has been used to attack Hamas positions, with notable success, and mid-level Fatah officials want more of that. “The only way that Fatah can win, or at least get out with some self-esteem, is if the political leadership takes a decision to engage the presidential guards into this battle,” says Nasser Juma’a, a Fatah legislator from the West Bank town of Nablus.
Within the Israeli establishment, opinion is split on whether to let in more weapons. “Israel cannot intervene, but it cannot be indifferent either to the question of who controls Gaza,” says an Israeli official. However, Gaza is already awash with arms. “Egypt’s incompetence”, says the official, has allowed Hamas to smuggle them through tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, and recently a Palestinian with Israeli residency was caught trying to smuggle 6,000 bullets at the Israel-Gaza border. Besides, arms meant for Fatah could easily end up in Hamas’s hands.
Hamas may pull back from a final showdown in Gaza, forcing Fatah to sit down and negotiate. But some predict a total split between a “Hamastan” in Gaza and a West Bank ruled by Fatah. No Israeli leader—including Ehud Barak, the former prime minister, who this week won the Labour party’s primary election and could return to power next year—will feel any pressure to talk peace with a Palestinian leadership that is so definitively divided.
