Israel's bastard children: Hamastan and Fatahland

The world is now trying to make sense of the new political reality in Palestine which has Fatah running the West Bank and Hamas now in firm control of the Gaza Strip. In Gaza City yesterday, the green flag of Hamas flew over public buildings where last week the Palestinian flag had been. Over a hundred people have been killed in the violence that enveloped the coastal strip for five days.

The cause of the Gaza violence is threefold. The most proximate cause is access to financial control of Gaza. Hamas was desperate to bring the Fatah-led security force under its control. Its leader Muhammad Dahlan, a former protégé of Yasser Arafat, wanted to use the force to bolster his own presidential bid. Dahlan ran a highly profitable protection racket which will now fall under the control of Hamas. Looters stripped his villa yesterday as well as attacking the presidential compound left vacant by Mahmoud Abbas.

The second reason was to kill off the struggling 1993 Oslo Accords which first gave voice to the ‘two state’ proposal for Israel and Palestine. Fatah under Arafat agreed to the Accords believing it could make a state out of the West Bank and Gaza. Out of the accords was born the Palestinian Authority. Hamas, however, has a mandate for a single contiguous Palestine that has no place for the Jewish state of Israel. It wants to see a country that inherits the 22,000 square kms of the old British Palestine mandate, not the 5,000 square kms as accepted by Fatah.

The third underlying reason for the violence is the deep-rooted philosophical difference between Fatah and Hamas. The secular Fatah’s vision for a democratic Palestine is radically different from the theocratic entity prescribed by Hamas. It wants Sharia Law not Western civil law. In the 18 months since it won the election, Hamas has attempted to “Islamise” Gaza with beards compulsory for men and hijabs for women.

In the West Bank, President Abbas sacked Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya on Thursday and replaced him with Salam Fayyad, an independent lawmaker and former World Bank economist. The appointment is likely to strengthen Abbas’s case to get international aid sent to a PLO account to avoid it coming into the hands of Hamas. Fatah also began rounding up Hamas members and sympathisers in the West Bank. They also burned and looted Hamas offices and killed at least one of their leaders.

Amnesty International has condemned Hamas and Fatah for their actions during the week’s violence. In a statement yesterday, it said both groups have shown utter disregard for fundamental principles of international law and have committed grave human rights abuses. It condemned indiscriminate attacks and “reckless gun battles” in residential neighbourhoods that left beleaguered occupants prisoners in their own homes. People protesting against the violence have also been targeted. Gunmen in Gaza City and Khan Younes fired on unarmed demonstrators who were calling for an end to the armed clashes, killing one protester and injuring several others.

The two groups have been in an uneasy power sharing arrangement since Hamas had a breakthrough win in the legislative elections in January 2006. Fatah leader Mamoud Abbas remained President leading to an effective stalemate. Due to Hamas’s refusal to recognise Israel, the mediating Quartet (EU, US, Russia and the UN) threatened to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority. In June 2006 it appeared as if the two groups were moving towards an agreement on Israel in the face of international pressure. However Hamas dashed these hopes by saying their political settlement with Fatah did not contain an implicit recognition of Israel. That settlement too was short-lived.

Hamas will now rule Gaza alone although with significant help from Syria and Iran as well as moral support from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas’s Covenant which was established in 1988 states that the organization's goal is to "raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine”. It promises to obliterate Israel and believes that Palestine is an Islamic Trust (“Waqf” in Arabic) which cannot be negotiated away by political leaders. However Israel still has immense power over the strip. It controls the borders and has the power to cut off water and power.

During the second Intifada of 2001, Yasser Arafat told an Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that Hamas was a creation of Israel. He blamed Hamas for the violence and claimed that then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir gave them money and “more than 700 institutions, among them schools, universities and mosques” in the late 1980s. Arafat went on to say Hamas was constituted with the support of Israel. "The aim was to create an organisation antagonistic to the PLO,” he said.

Arafat was not alone in this view. Several former US intelligence officials say that Israel gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years. Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies says the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO and a former CIA operative said Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative". Israel’s long cherished dream has now turned into a reality of three states: a Jewish one in Israel, a secular Arab one in the West Bank, and an Islamist one in Gaza.

Fatah v Hamas

The two main Palestinian factions announced yesterday that they were moving closer to an agreement that would implicitly recognise Israel. It is an attempt to end international sanctions and seen as a response to the plan whereby the US, UN, and Russia endorsed an EU plan to funnel humanitarian aid to the Palestinians while bypassing the anti-Israeli government. Parallel to the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel is a power struggle between the two main political parties; Hamas and Fatah.

Fatah, the inheritors of Yasser Arafat’s power, have been the long-standing power in Palestinian politics. They have dominated elections since 1996, when Hamas boycotted the poll, allowing Fatah to sweep to victory over a handful of independents. Hamas came in from the political cold this year and contested the January 2006 elections. They capitalised on corruption within the Palestinian Authority (PA) and beat Fatah in a stunning landslide election victory. Hamas now have 76 of the 132 seats compared to Fatah’s 43. Fatah still control the presidency under Mahmoud Abbas. Crucially he retains official control over the Palestinian security services.

Since then tensions have increased between the two factions. In early May, three people were killed in clashes between the groups. A spate of tit-for-tat kidnappings led to the death of a Hamas member and as a result Hamas gunman fired a shoulder-held missile into a government vehicle, killing two Fatah members of the security forces.

Fatah is a reverse acronym of Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filistiniya (Palestinian Liberation Movement) and means "conquest" in Arabic. Arafat founded the party in the 1950s to promote the armed struggle to liberate Palestine from Israeli control. It led the peace process in the 1990s after recognising Israel’s right to exist. Most of the bureaucrats in the Palestinian Authority are Fatah members and they also control the 70,000 strong police and security forces. Abbas is leading the fight to gain recognition of the West Bank and incorporate it with Gaza into a Greater Palestine. Their militant wing the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has held an informal ceasefire since 2005 but has breached it on occasions which it calls retaliatory attacks against Israel.

Hamas is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement) and means "zeal" in Arabic. They were formed in 1987 with a dual purpose: social welfare and armed resistance against Israel. These goals have earned the support of the Palestinian oppressed but saw them designated a terrorist organisation by the West. Their charter seeks Israel's destruction. Hamas’s Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, has said that a long-term truce with Israel possible if Israel withdraws from territory occupied in 1967. Their armed wing is called Izzedine al-Qassam brigades and they too have a ceasefire in operation but they also claim the right to retaliate against Israeli attacks. According to the U.S. State Dept, Hamas is funded by Iran, Palestinian expatriates, and private benefactors in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. Because of Hamas’s status, outside funds to the PA have dried up. Banks refuse to handle emergency donations fearing US penalties. An impending financial meltdown of the PA is possible which could cause a major humanitarian crisis. As the police force is controlled by Fatah, Hamas has deployed a 3,000-strong shadow security force including its supporters to tackle lawlessness in Gaza. The move exacerbated tensions with pro-Fatah security agencies sparking gunfights between the groups.

The Palestinian Authority was set up as a direct result of the Oslo peace accords signed by in 1993 between Israel and the PLO under the auspices of US President Clinton. Initially the Accords gave the Gaza Strip and the city of Jericho in the West Bank to the PA. The aim was to set up a Palestinian state covering Gaza and the West Bank. The status of Jerusalem was not addressed. The 2000 Palestinian Intifada known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada caused the Oslo Accords to be seen as increasingly irrelevant.

It has been superseded by the so-called “Road Map for Peace” in 2002. The road map set out by President Bush called for an end to Palestinian violence, political reform and Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. This would be followed by an internationally led Palestinian economy recovery leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state. In August 2005, Israeli troops disengaged from the Gaza Strip and in June this year Israeli PM Ehud Olmert announced he will meet Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace talks.

Abbas remains the key. In May 2006 he took the initiative back from Hamas by proposing a referendum to accept an independent state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. If he can get Hamas to accept this, then Palestine stands a chance to exist. If Hamas turns its back on the proposal, they will remain outcasts and, although electorally popular, they will leave Palestine as an international pariah. Israel can only stand to gain from this outcome.