What strategic direction will the main powerbrokers in Gaza take post-withdrawal? Sherine Bahaa sounds out Hamas For the first time in almost half a century, Gazans are free. True, they do not have full control of all entry and exit points and live now with the threat of Israel showing up at any time and taking things back to square one. Nonetheless, something significant has changed. Where next? Recently at noon prayers on a Friday reporters were invited to witness Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas praying in the Caliph Mosque while an imam celebrated Israel's withdrawal. The Israelis were leaving, the imam said, because of "the steadfastness" of the Palestinians and because of their "mujahideen". To most Palestinians, such words concede credit for Gaza's new freedoms to Hamas. While some Palestinian observers argue that the resistance only activated variables in Israeli society itself, making it possible, even advisable, for the Israeli government to take the decision to withdraw, it is clear that a power-vacuum has opened up following the Israeli redeployment and that something must fill it. With legislative elections slated for 25 January, Hamas is gearing up to do just that. In all likelihood, after January the face of Palestinian politics will be radically altered. Thus far, Fatah has been in command. Sixty-three of the 83 active members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) -- the nation's effective parliament -- are members of Fatah. Today, Hamas is riding a wave of popular support, the movement demonstrating its power at the ballot box in municipal elections in recent months. The trend is so deep that the Fatah leadership balked at the idea of summer elections for the PLC, preferring to set the date back, in order to better prepare to fight for their seats. Lines are beginning to be drawn. On the opposite sides of one mosque, banners of the two groups compete for attention. On one side, a green Hamas banner reads, "Four years of Intifada beats 10 years of negotiations." On the other side, a white Fatah banner reads, "Withdrawal from Gaza means a reawakening of the Palestinian economy." Talking economics makes a lot of sense in impoverished Gaza. Gazans desperately need jobs, and donor money will help Abbas. But Hamas has captured the language of national liberation. If Palestinians have proven one thing, it is their resolution to stay true to the latter. Like everyone else, doubtless, Gazans aspire to wealth and comfort. But when they say "not at any price", and that they cannot be bought, they mean it. Fatah is in trouble. For most Palestinians, Fatah -- the mainstream of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority (PA) -- has failed them on many fronts. Hamas, on the contrary, has built a reputation for honesty and good management of its health, food aid and other programmes for poor families. Latest polls reveals that Hamas reaps from 45-50 per cent of popular support in syndicates, student elections and municipalities inside the West Bank, and this figure rises to more than 60 per cent in Gaza. A big question in Gaza is to what degree Hamas will stress parliamentary activity and to what extent it will continue paramilitary activity. Seemingly, Hamas is committed to both, as reiterated by key movement figures. But a suicide attack on Sunday in Beersheba and the release of a videotaped interview with Mohamed Deif -- a lead bomb-maker for Hamas -- in which he called for the destruction of Israel, has brought the rapprochement between the PA and Hamas to an end. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad welcomed the suicide operation, the first since the beginning of the Israeli withdrawal. The attack left 40 Israelis injured, two of them in a critical condition. Earlier, Deif's video warned the PA not to try to confiscate Hamas's weapons, promising Israelis that "all of Palestine will become a hell" for them. According to PA officials, the bombing and the inflammatory video would surely undermine people's sympathy for the Islamic movement. Whether or not this is wishful thinking, Hamas clearly wants to strengthen its hold on Palestinian society. Hamas has "a mission", said Ziad Abu Amr, a political scientist and independent legislator who serves as a liaison between Abbas and Hamas. "They want to Islamicise state and society. Yes, in the final analysis, they want control." Yet with regional and international events challenging political Islam, it is up to Hamas to decide whether to tone down its foundational discourse, even dilute it in order to make it more palatable. "If Hamas stands alone, it will definitely lose. Hamas has to establish a common ground with the rest of the factions and the PA," Atef Edwan, professor at the Islamic University in Gaza City, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "The political leadership inside the movement has worked really hard to reach a consensus among Palestinian factions in order to reign supreme," he added. "We are present on all levels, institutions, education, philanthropy. We have an overall project. We are not limited to resistance, though it is our major project until granting full rights to our people," Sheikh Hassan Youssef, Hamas's top leader, told the Weekly. In highlighting the social base of Hamas, Youssef aims to underline the broader political agenda of the Islamic group. "Statements coming out from the military wing of the movement should not be perceived as stating the policy of the movement," says Edwan. "The military is only one tool used to implement specific tactics. Hamas is not governed by the military," he added. An attempt on the life of Youssef, released from Israeli prison a few months ago, failed last month. The shooting incident targeting Youssef's car came against a backdrop of growing insecurity as well as intensifying rivalry between Hamas and Fatah. Youssef refused to point the finger at anyone for the attack. In terms of the near future, Hamas wants to consolidate its political position in Gaza while working to transfer its military forces to the West Bank. "We have to make sure that by disengagement, Israel does not mean splitting the resistance in Gaza from that in the West Bank. This is unacceptable," Youssef stressed. Youssef did not rule out coordination between different Palestinian factions to rebuild what the occupation has destroyed. Meanwhile, Abbas is trying to frame Hamas within the political system and ultimately diminish the influence the movement's weapons bring. It is in this context that Hamas recently turned down a call by Abbas to join a Palestinian national unity government, and has also defied Abbas's call for disarmament both before and seemingly after the Israeli withdrawal. "No one has the right to approach our arms or even call for putting them down. If we put down our arms what are the alternatives for protecting our people, negotiations? All that is futile. Armed resistance had to persist to oblige the occupation to flee our territories," asserted Youssef. Gaza was never the endpoint, in other words. The PA believes that resistance groups should lay down their arms and that a civil state grounded in peaceful political resistance in Gaza should be established, leaving the conflict in the West Bank to Palestinians there. Hamas disagrees. According to Yasser Zaetra, a specialist in Islamic movements, Hamas in Gaza insists that it -- indeed, all of Gaza -- has a stake in the battle for freedom in the West Bank. "Resistance groups have to develop the means to extend some of their activities from Gaza to the West Bank to maintain the intertwined nature of the saga," Zaetra says. So while Hamas seeks power in a future PLC in order to stand against Fatah and push for Islamic values in politics, broader representation is also a means of linking the fate of the West Bank to Gaza and, ultimately, continuing the resistance post-withdrawal. The Islamic Resistance Movement is realistic enough, opines Zaetra, to know "that neither the Israelis, the Egyptians, the US, nor the international community will allow Hamas to have an upper hand in Gaza." This is further reason to link Gaza to the West Bank. Better to consolidate one's standing as the second party in two territories than break one's movement trying to become the sole party in one.
