Palestinian politics is approaching the point of no return. The power struggle between the Islamist Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his secular and nationalist Fatah movement is intensifying, with tensions breaking into outright combat.
Since Hamas was founded in the early 1980s, it has refused to come under the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Hamas' victory in the parliamentary election earlier this year -- a democratic watershed -- demonstrated that it had come of age politically. For the first time in Palestinian history, a religious party is dominant. But Fatah has not accepted defeat, while Hamas is convinced that elements within Fatah agree with Israeli and US plans to topple the Hamas government.
Abbas remains the Palestinian president, and the Basic Law makes him commander of all Palestinian security forces. However, while most official security forces remain loyal to him, over the past year Hamas has created an alternative security structure, built around a 4000-member "Operational Force." Moreover, Hamas has announced plans to recruit 1,500 additional security personnel for the West Bank, Fatah's stronghold. In recent weeks, the two sides have clashed frequently across the Gaza strip, heightening tensions further.
The confrontations have come at a time when Abbas has been trying to persuade Hamas to moderate its anti-Israel stance and ally with Fatah in a national unity government. Abbas believes that Hamas' acceptance of negotiations with Israel is the only way to break the international sanctions that are devastating Palestinian society.
Despite this, both sides are building up their forces. Intelligence reports suggest that Hamas is smuggling weapons and explosives from the Sinai into the Gaza Strip at an accelerated pace. The US, Israel and some Arab governments plan to arm and train forces loyal to Abbas, especially his presidential guard. They want to prepare Abbas' forces in Gaza for a confrontation with Hamas, which they believe is inevitable.
Israel is considering Abbas' request to transfer arms and ammunitions from Egypt and Jordan in hopes of bolstering his loyalist forces. There is also a US proposal to allow the Badr Brigade -- a wing of the Palestine Liberation Army that is stationed in Jordan -- to relocate to the Palestinian territories as Abbas' rapid reaction force in Gaza in anticipation of a feared civil war. The Badr Brigade is composed of several thousand Palestinians, mostly long-time PLO activists.
As the maneuvering continues, Israel and Egypt find themselves working together to bolster Abbas and Fatah. With the Gaza Strip in its backyard, Egypt has already mediated several times between Hamas and Fatah, and has been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to arrange a swap of prisoners with Israel following Hamas' abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
But Egypt's government is angry with Hamas for opposing the formation of a coalition government. Indeed, the seizure of Shalit deepened the rift between Hamas and Fatah, which believes that the abduction was staged in order to sabotage discussions for a national unity government.
More generally, Egypt is concerned that Gaza is becoming politically radicalized and may be transformed into "Hamastan." This, Egypt fears, would give a boost to its own Islamic radicals, against which the government has long fought.
Egypt also worries about a possible Hamas-Fatah civil war. Although Hamas has ruled this out, it has not hesitated to use heavy force against its opponents. Likewise, Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar of the Hamas-led government says that any dissolution of the government or call for early elections by Abbas would be a recipe for civil war.
Fear of major fighting has already sent many Palestinians into Egypt, leading to the deployment of Egyptian troops on the border to control any exodus.
Israel, meanwhile, is worried that Hamas has strengthened its military grip on Gaza, in terms of both fortifications and networks capable of launching Qassam rockets into neighboring Israeli towns. Israel might not wait for Abbas and his forces, but rather launch a full-scale intervention to weaken Hamas.
Can Hamas and Fatah put aside their differences and form a unity government?
Abbas says that if a coalition government is not agreed upon within the next two weeks, he will dissolve the government, a move Hamas will not tolerate. But forming a coalition government is unlikely to ease the tension between Hamas and Fatah. New confrontations would likely emerge as soon as a new government were formed.
Ironically, the most likely way to avoid large-scale confrontation between Fatah and Hamas is through an Israeli incursion into Gaza. Facing the Israelis together is the only way that the rival Palestinian groups will postpone their own bloody showdown.
Mkhaimar Abusada is a professor of political science at al-Azhar University in Gaza. Copyright: Project Syndicate
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs