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David Dreilinger and IPF Staff is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization with a singular purpose: to support active and sustained American efforts aimed at resolving the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
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By David Dreilinger and IPF Staff
December 28, 2006
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The pressure on Hamas is growing by the day.
The Hamas-led Palestinian government, because of its refusal to recognize Israel and forswear terrorism, remains hamstrung by crippling international sanctions that have caused mass unemployment and poverty. Hundreds of thousands of salaries have not been paid, and the Palestinian Authority has barely been able to function.
Moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in his recent call for early elections to replace the ineffective Hamas government, has laid down a challenge to the Islamic fundamentalist group: moderate and join a unity government or face the voters.
And Hamas has reason to fear the latter scenario, as public support for its hardline position is waning. 60% of Palestinians are unhappy with the Hamas government's performance, according to a poll conducted by Near East Consulting last week, and 86% of Palestinians said that their lives had worsened since Hamas took over. Dr. Khalil Shikaki found 61% of Palestinians in favor of early elections.
The call for early elections -- which many in Hamas would regard as a "coup" and grounds for armed conflict -- has resulted in increasingly bloody street battles between Hamas and Fatah, as both sides jockey for public support. Both sides are rearming, as fears of a Palestinian civil war continue to grow.
Hamas's accelerating military buildup presents a particularly grim prospect. According to military affairs correspondent Alex Fishman of Yediot Ahronot, Hamas is set to accept $250 million in aid from Iran in order to set up military capabilities in Gaza similar to Hezbollah's forces in southern Lebanon. According to Fishman, "the Iran-Hamas agreement is, in effect, the final and decisive stage in the recruitment of Hamas to the broad rejectionist front..." The point is to bring a Hamas-led Palestine into a front "which already includes Syria, Lebanon and elements in Iraq." In Fishman's view, Hamas's adherence to the ceasefire was a tactical decision to allow room for rearmament, and not a sign of pragmatism.
Against this dim backdrop, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with President Abbas on Saturday in Jerusalem -- the Prime Minister's residence flew the Palestinian flag, the first such time a visiting Palestinian official was granted that honor -- in order to strengthen his hand. At the meeting, Olmert agreed to release $100 million of Palestinian tax revenue (money that Israel had withheld from the Palestinian Authority since Hamas was elected) to Abbas' office to help him pay salaries. To improve his military position, Israel reportedly agreed to allow troops loyal to Abbas to enter the Palestinian territories from Jordan, and approved the transfer of weapons from Egypt to Palestinian security forces. Israel also agreed to remove more than two dozen roadblocks in the West Bank and to ease border crossings to allow the Palestinian economy to begin to recover.
Abbas is also getting some more powerful backup support. The Bush administration, according to a report in the Forward, is pushing for a $100 million program to bolster and train security forces loyal to Abbas, in order to increase his capabilities relative to Hamas.
Are Israel and the US taking sides in a Palestinian civil war and trying to throw Hamas out of power? Or is this part of a strategy to pressure Hamas to moderate its positions, or a means to catalyze a schism within the organization between pragmatists who want to deal with Israel and extremists who will never accept the Jewish state? Or is Olmert simply looking to reinvigorate a bilateral diplomatic process with Mahmoud Abbas?
In any case, Israel is trying to put the pressure squarely on Hamas's shoulders: they must choose to moderate, fight, or face irrelevance. As Amit Cohen observed in Maariv, "The meeting with Olmert, like the declaration of elections, is part of the moves that Abbas is making against Hamas, part of the attempt to maneuver them into the corner, to make them realize that they are trapped." This strategy could lead Hamas to moderate and perhaps join the sought-after unity government with Abbas. Or it could lead to a political and social breakdown in the Palestinian territories and an Israeli-Abbas fight against Hamas, one whose outcome is far from certain.
Keeping the Process Alive
Olmert's meeting with Abbas -- the first official meeting since he became Prime Minister in April -- was a positive outreach to Palestinian moderates. But the question is: how can they keep the process going?
The next step, from both the Palestinian and the Israeli perspective, is a prisoner release. A release of hundreds Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails -- something Olmert is reportedly willing to do -- would do wonders to improve Abbas's level of public support.
But any serious prisoner release hinges on the simultaneous release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Abbas has little control over his fate; Shalit is held by Hamas, which has no interest in assisting -- or even coordinating with -- Abbas. Thus all sides are back to the familiar impasse.
Mahmoud Abbas, despite his desire to reclaim his authority and defeat Hamas in new elections, still holds out hope that a unity government, or a government of technocrats, can be formed. That is why he has agreed to go to Amman next week to meet with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. The two have met in the past with little to show for it (although the ceasefire in Gaza, despite the Islamic Jihad Kassam rocket fire, was an important achievement). Perhaps the new political calculus -- the growing pressure on Hamas -- will augur well for compromise.
But if an agreement cannot be reached, more internecine violence is likely. That's what the Israelis are already preparing for, apparently throwing in their lot with Abbas. The problem is that Hamas has an incentive to disrupt this burgeoning alliance and would use their influence to do just that.
That's why the continuation of the political process between Israel and Abbas is so important. The best way to strengthen the Palestinian moderates is to reawaken the hope of a political resolution to the conflict. The rumors of a renewed push by the Bush administration to resolve the conflict, including reports of a plan to establish an interim Palestinian state before the President leaves office, are helpful components of the strategy to strengthen moderate forces.
And Israel could do more. As Ben Caspit wrote, Israel's commitments to Abbas were "too little, too late, too superfluous." If Olmert had really wanted to make a splash and discredit Hamas, he "would release [large numbers of] prisoners for Abbas' sake without any connection to the release of Gilad Shalit."
The challenge posed by the hardline factions in Hamas is grave, and Israel has few good options. But Israel's engagement with Abbas is crucial to offering any sort of alternative to the Islamic fundamentalist group.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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