Hamas' Split Personality

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright January 16, 2009
All Rights Reserved.                    

        Founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Mohammad Taha, the Sunni Muslim Palestinian resistance group finds itself in a life-and-death struggle with Israel.  Hamas ended a six-month Epyptian-brokered truce Dec. 19, firing scores of Quassam and Katyusha rockets across the Israeli border.  Hamas resumed the armed struggle that distinguished itself from Fatah, known today as the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas, successor to the late Yasser Arafat.  Arafat founded the Palestine Liberation Organization May 28, 1964, with its official goal of reestablishing the British Mandate, ending the Zionist rule founded in 1948.  Arafat led a massive fund raising campaign, making the PLO the richest Mideast resistance group, with estimated assets of around $8-10 billion by 1993, drawing in about $1-2 billion in yearly donations.

            After years of armed struggle, Arafat broke ranks with Palestinian militants in 1988, accepting U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 for an eventual two state solution, prompting groups like Hamas to reject the PLO.  Over 25 years since founding PLO, Arafat was under constant international pressure to show statesmanship, compromising his original charter of restoring the British Mandate for Palestinians.  During those frustrating years of peacemaking, Arafat used his good friend Sheik Ahmed Yassin as the PLO’s armed wing, frequently disavowing any connection.  Yassin developed suicide bombing to an art form, pressuring Israel into concessions.  By 1993, six years after the first Intifada or revolt, Israel went to peace table with Arafat signing the Oslo Accords with U.S. President Bill Clinton.  Arafat, while shifty, made few friends with radical Palestinian groups.

            Arafat’s standing dropped in the radical community, prompting groups like Hamas to play a bigger role in Palestinian society.  Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004 of mysterious causes, rumored poisoned by his own ranks, never witnessing the Sept. 12, 2005 Gaza pullout, ceding the former Egyptian territory, a spoil of the 1967 War.  Despite the best efforts by Abbas to continue Arafat’s dream of a Palestinian state, Hamas won parliamentary elections Jan. 26, 2006, stunning Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.  Hamas’ unexpected victory culminated years of rumored corruption scuttled peace deals and broken promises by Arafat.  Six months later, Hamas seized Gaza June 14, 2007, bringing the situation to-date.  Since winning elections and seizing control of Gaza, Hamas has been shunned by the international community, creating the blockades prompting Hamas’ current actions.

            Despite rejected by the U.S. and its European partners, Hamas now controls 1.4 million Gazans, no longer interested in joining Abbas’ Palestinian Authority and two-state peace solution. Gazan Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place:  Following orders from Hamas’ exiled leader Khaled Mashaal and dealing the pressures in Gaza.  Before Hamas seized control of Gaza, Haniyeh was intimately involved in Hamas relief work with schools, food banks and medical clinics.  He’s seen firsthand the plight of Gazans, surviving a blockade by Egypt and Israel, unwilling to support Hamas’ radical mission.  Haniyeh desperately wants to sign-on to the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, requiring radicals to stop firing rockets.  Hamas’ exiled leadership in Damscus continues to tell Haniyeh to fire more rockets, unwilling to stop its war with Israel.

            Meanwhile, Haniyeh watches, just like Hezbollah did in its 2006 month-long war with Israel, Gaza’s fragile infrastructure ground into the Stone Age.  Egypt wants to leave temporarily Israeli troops on the ground in Gaza to maintain law-and-order, before U.N. can supply an effective peacekeeping force.  “We hope that this Egyptian effort will succeed,” said Gaza Hamas official Ghazi Hamad.  While Mashaal fights to destroy the Jewish State, Haniyeh fights to preserve what’s left of Hamas’ tenuous grip on Gaza.  He’s knows firsthand that there’s nothing heroic about mass suicide:  Only death and destruction.  Mashaal insists that Haniyeh martyr the Gazan population, already over 1,000 casualties since Israel began its offensive Dec. 27.  Mashaal has developed a close working relationship with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a harsh anti-Semite and Mideast troublemaker.

            Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livini, a Kadima Party candidate for Prime Minister, signed a mutual defense pact, obligating the U.S. to help stop arms smuggling into Gaza.  Israel believes there can be no durable peace without dealing with arms smuggling, especially Katyusha and Qassam rockets into Gaza.  “The war sparked a strong debate within Hamas over where we could have avoided this war or not,” said an unnamed Gazan offcial, mirroring the split within Hamas.  U.S. officials know that there can be no brokered peace with Palestinians unless they come under one authority.  Today’s rift with Hamas’ Damascus wing indicates that, despite their differences, Gazans and West Bank residents seek a two-state peace deal with Israel.  For disgruntled radicals like Mashaal, they can only beat the old war drums or feel irrelevant and out-of-the-loop.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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