Hamas has announced it would not renew its appeasement with Israel from yesterday at dawn after this appeasement was first struck on June 19 with Egypt's mediation. In a statement, Hamas said Israel had not lived up to its commitments, as it did not lift the blockade, did not open the border crossings and did not halt its air strikes on the Strip. Hamas also accused Egypt of not doing enough to put pressure on Israel and to make her live up to its commitments, saying that Israel was therefore the only party which benefited from this appeasement. Israel said the same thing, blaming Hamas for the appeasement failure and for the exchange of warnings between the two parties. The non-renovation of the appeasement does not change anything on the front line between the two parties. The past six months have been marked by attacks and counter-attacks. After every missile launched on Israeli settlers, Israel rushed off to close the border crossings, sent its planes against the Gaza Strip and responded to the humble Qassam rockets with real missiles which destroyed houses, killed civilians, children and members of the Palestinian resistance and caused as much destruction as possible. The appeasement was not a truce as commonly intended in wars, as one of the two parties, Hamas, does not have a real regular army and does not have total control on the other resistance factions which are active in the Gaza Strip. Sometimes, it even finds it hard to control its own members belonging to Azz Eddin al-Qassam brigades. Actually, it is questionable whether the leaders of each brigade have always been able to control their own members and make them respect the appeasement without giving way to moments of anger caused by Israel's excessive force. Perhaps this is the reason why Palestinian's blood has continued to spill in spite of the appeasement. Every time Israel launches its missiles, closes the border crossings and tightens the blockade geographically, it claims it does so in response to the rockets coming from Gaza, while Gaza itself claims the opposite. As this is an appeasement and not a truce, there are no neutral observers on the ground who can say exactly who is responsible for breaching the appeasement. Moreover, the understanding was verbal; therefore the two parties' commitments are not clearly defined. Resistance brigades in Gaza made a mistake when they adopted the "one by one" tactic to respond to Israel's violations of the appeasement. By doing so, they wasted many of the fruits that could be reaped through the appeasement itself and gave the enemy the chance to fight at the appropriate times. Moreover, these brigades brought about too much suffering to Gaza's people. What they did not get is that the balance of power between any resistance movement and the enemy is basically in favor of the latter. Therefore, the movement must use its limited strength at the most appropriate time so that it can inflict as much damage as possible in order to compensate the heavy price it will pay. Hamas knows more than anyone else that the appeasement was in its interest, as its end means that the blockade will continue and Hamas itself will lose its qualification to govern a land upon which it only brought hunger, death and destruction. Yet, it seems it is insisting on making this kind of tactical fatal mistakes and this has pushed it to declare over the past few weeks that it is ready to renew the appeasement provided that Israel commits not to closing the border crossings under any circumstances. This situation has also pushed Hamas to launch a silly media campaign against Egypt in order to blackmail it under the pretext that its mediation has not been fair. As a result, Egypt has given up this role. What the Hamas-led government does not take into consideration is that the appeasement was the first step of a scenario brokered by Egypt. This step would then have been followed by a national dialogue among all Palestinian factions over a common national strategy and tactic to find a solution to the Palestinian Cause. This dialogue would have led to a national unity government qualified to lift the blockade and to a prisoner exchange agreement. The Hamas-led government does not take into consideration, either, that it is the one which pulled out of this dialogue at the last minute for insignificant reasons that could have been dealt with at the same negotiating table, notably Ramallah detentions and Hamas's insistence on Khaled Meshal sitting next to Mahmoud Abbas as president of the dialogue. Hamas has been making one fatal mistake after the other since it took part in the elections. It has stopped being a resistance movement and has turned to power, until it decided to rule Gaza all alone through a coup and gave priority to its partisan interests rather than its national ones and to the formation of an Islamic emirate in Gaza rather than its liberation from the occupation. These mistakes have led to the current standoff, which will push Hamas – as all evidence seems to suggest – to try and trouble the region. This will force Israel to step up the blockade on Gaza, where people are now besieged by their government's policy and their enemy's barbarity and have turned into hostages Hamas takes advantage of to cling to power. Hamas's next tactical fatal mistake is to spread hostility against Egypt by calling for demonstrations throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds. Hamas wants to blackmail Egypt and force it to open Rafah border crossing, as this movement falsely believes that this way the blockade will be over and the entire world will acknowledge Hamas's Islamic emirate in Gaza, thus putting an end to this movement's regional and international isolation. We all have to stage demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people, to criticize the Israeli blockade and do all we can to end it. However, we also have to slam the Palestinian internal division and say "No" to two states under the occupation. Finally, all that it left for me to do is to remind Hamas of a Russian saying that advises not to spit in a well from which you may need to drink one day.
