OCCUPIED AL QUDS: Winning the Palestinian election now looks like the easy part for Hamas. The government it must set up in the next five weeks faces possible financial collapse, with Israel stopping vital tax revenue payments and Western donors threatening to cut aid.
Meanwhile, Hamas faces an eventual showdown with Abbas over peacemaking and the task of running a Palestinian Authority in which Abbas’s long-dominant Fatah is deeply entrenched and will be happy to sit back and watch Hamas fail.
But the Islamist group is nowhere near bowing to pressure from Abbas and Western nations to abandon its core principles by recognising Israel and foreswearing “violence” to ease the crisis.
Hamas leaders met Abbas in Gaza this week to set in motion the process of forming a government following their shock Jan. 25 parliamentary election victory.
The first problem for Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s nominee for prime minister, is finding partners for the new coalition.
Ideally Hamas would like to bring Fatah into a unity government, but its leaders refuse. Hamas would also like to woo technocrats who might temper its image internationally, but some are wary of being too closely linked to Hamas.
Without foreign support, the financial crisis could be biting by the time Hamas actually has its cabinet in place.
Israel has announced a permanent halt to the monthly transfer of $50 million in tax money it collects for the Palestinians. Washington has asked for the return of $50 million in aid to ensure it does not go to Hamas.
Western donors, who give the Palestinians most of the $1 billion they get in foreign aid, want Hamas to disarm and to drop its charter commitment to destroy the Jewish state.
“Hamas will become fiercer because of this war of starvation,” Hamas lawmaker Ahmed Haj Ali told Reuters. “A cat will turn into a lion if it is jailed. We will not surrender.”
Hamas is looking elsewhere for funds. Leaders were in Iran this week and hope for success elsewhere in the Middle East.
But Palestinian officials say it would be hard to transfer large sums given that Hamas is listed in the West as a “terrorist group”. Arab states courting US favour may also eventually bow to pressure to halt aid even if they gave short-term support.
While Western donors have made clear that funds that do not pass through a Hamas-led government could continue to flow, the Palestinian Authority is the backbone of the feeble economy.
“It would be difficult to starve Hamas without collapsing the Palestinian Authority,” said regional analyst Mouin Rabbani.
The crisis might knock the credibility of Hamas, chosen by voters seeking a change from corruption-tainted Fatah and hoping for economic improvement under the Islamists, favoured for their charity network as well as their militancy.
Hamas will also face day-to-day problems as a result of the lack of contacts with Israel. Thousands of people seek Israeli work permits, others need medical care. Those could be much harder for Hamas to get.
Aside from running the government, Hamas is expected to clash one day with Abbas over his aim of talks with Israel — a policy which he wants the new government to follow even if there have been no negotiations on statehood for years. Hamas and Abbas appear keen for now to postpone a showdown, but few believe that can work indefinitely.
“This will create a crisis,” said caretaker Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, a Fatah veteran. “It will reflect negatively on our relations with the world and our national cause will be harmed.”
To recognise Israel and abandon weapons would mean a change much more fundamental than Hamas’s softening of rhetoric and the fact that it has largely followed a ceasefire for the past year.
Rabbani said Hamas appeared ready to consider a formula that might still allow Abbas to negotiate with Israel and thereby distance itself from the contacts.
Hamas now says it could respect some aspects of 1990s interim peace deals that it long rejected outright.
Hamas has also suggested a 10-year truce if Israel gives up all the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as the Gaza Strip — though Israel makes clear it will not give up all land it captured in the 1967 war. Hamas’s overtures will certainly not be enough to satisfy Israel or Washington, however, especially while still accompanied by repeated commitments to armed struggle and ultimately getting rid of Israel.
Hamas, though, cannot lightly abandon its main power base and positions rooted in a Muslim Brotherhood that seeks Islamist rule in the Middle East.
Hamas is also concerned that by agreeing to negotiate and recognising Israel it could end up tarnished by a similar failure to that of Fatah if talks on statehood led to collapse, as they did before the Palestinian uprising began in 2000.
Hamas’s problems are far from meaning that it could be ejected from power, though. Many Palestinian analysts believe that the pressure from Israel and Western countries will only strengthen support locally and in the region.
“Those who are betting on Hamas’s downfall are absolutely wrong,” said Palestinian analyst Mahdi Abdel-Hadi.—Reuters
