WASHINGTON, DC - US efforts to marginalise Palestinian Hamas and neutralise the threat it poses to US interests and Israel are not working, says a Congressional report. The report, released earlier this month, states that Hamas has become stronger domestically, regionally and internationally than it was during the 1990s, signaling that ongoing US efforts to isolate the group have delivered limited gains at best. “Various legislative and policy initiatives designed to accomplish this goal have at best achieved temporary or partial success,” reads the report, which was prepared by Congressional Research Service (CRS), an agency within the Library of Congress devoted to providing policy and legal analysis to committees and members of the United States Congress. The report's author is Jim Zanotti, a CRS analyst of Middle Eastern affairs. The report says that initiatives to contain Hamas, such as the Israeli-Egyptian closure regime in Gaza, may have yielded partial gains in constraining and isolating it. Despite these efforts, however, the group remains committed to “a unified public stance on its core principle of violent opposition to Israel”, and continues to threaten Israel “through rockets and the possibility of other attacks”. The possibility that the US could change its policy of excluding Hamas from negotiations could trigger “a heated debate”, the report predicts. Supporters of the current policy believe that any dealings with Hamas would strengthen the group at the expense of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and risk emboldening Palestinian militants to wage more attacks against Israel. On the other hand, those advocating change, argue that Hamas is less likely to antagonise Israel if “it is made a stakeholder that is accountable for revived hopes of a Palestinian state”. The report states that US rejection of dealings with Hamas without the group's “acceptance of conditions that appear antithetical to Hamas' core principles” could limit the Obama administration's future ability to offer “incentives even if regional conditions presented possible advantages of doing so for US, Israeli, and/or Palestinian interests”. The poor humanitarian conditions in Gaza contribute to “an image of Hamas asvictim and local and international hostility towards Israel”, the report indicates. This challenge, it adds, will present US decision makers with “considerable risks anddifficult trade-offs”.
Sallam is a correspondent of the Egyptian Mail and its daily edition The Egyptian Gazette in Washington.
