November 02, 2007	Friday	Shawwal 20, 1428

GAZA CITY: Signs of discord have emerged between hardcore radicals and pragmatists in Hamas after the Palestinian Islamist movement captured the Gaza Strip, analysts said on Thursday.

Last month, Ismail Haniya, who headed two successive Hamas-led governments after winning a landslide election victory in 2006, showed a surprisingly conciliatory bent when he said that Hamas rule in Gaza was temporary.

Haniya also said serious efforts were being made to relaunch dialogue with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, whose forces were overrun in Hamas’s bloody seizure of Gaza in June.

At odds with official Hamas policy, Haniya’s personal spokesman Ghazi Hamad evoked possible negotiations with Israel in an opinion piece published in the Palestinian press last month.

Hamas released a statement saying it did not reflect the party line.

Press reports said afterwards that Hamas had even suspended Hamad and Ahmed Yussef, Haniya’s political advisor who also made statements that antagonised the party’s hardliners.

But if Haniya and Hamad point to a certain pragmatic strand within Hamas, one of its other top Gaza leaders, Nizar Rayan, this week doused any hope of imminent reconciliation between bitter Palestinian enemies.

Known for his vitriol, Rayan on Monday vowed at a rally in the Gaza Strip that Hamas would also seize control of the West Bank, predicting a rapid overthrow of the elected Palestinian president.

His comments embarrassed the Hamas leadership, which openly favours dialogue between Fatah and Hamas.

“This was a personal comment made in haste. We want to declare that we reject and do not accept any kind of incitement against either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority,” Farraj Rumana said on Wednesday.

A Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, Fawzi Barhum, distanced the party from Rayan’s comments and denied Hamad had been suspended.

“During meetings with supporters, some leaders can get carried away and we have a remedy for that. Only official statements reflect the positions of the movement,” he told AFP.

“Brother Ghazi Hamad has not been suspended or fired. He has his position within the movement and he remains hugely respected,” he said.

A leading Hamas member Ismail Radwan denied any “talk of radicalism and moderation” within a movement that has traditionally projected unity.

“There are certainly differing points of view but that does not degenerate into quarrels or dissension,” he said.—AFP