Israeli threats to prevent next year’s Palestinian elections unless Hamas is disarmed could lead to a collapse of the present ceasefire and a new wave of attacks from the West Bank, the militant group has warned.
In any case, there will be an ”escalation of resistance” after the elections unless there are significant steps toward the creation of a Palestinian state, Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas’s leader in the occupied territories, told The Guardian.
”First we have to run a fair election and give a chance for people to choose their representatives. Secondly, the West Bank and Jerusalem are part of this land. The resistance will be escalated there if the negotiations are failing,” he said.
”Now we are going to be in Parliament, it will intensify our resistance. Let us imagine that Hamas became the majority, it is going to train this [Palestinian] army that avoided confrontation with the Israelis into a resistance movement. So, we are going to add to the resistance.”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demanded that Hamas disarm and renounce its charter calling for the destruction of Israel before being permitted to run for Parliament.
Sharon said that if Hamas, which is expected to win about a third of the seats, did not meet his demands, Israel would block the election.
”I don’t think they can hold elections without our assistance, and we will make all possible efforts not to aid them if Hamas participates,” he said.
Hamas said carrying out this threat would lead to the collapse of the ceasefire engineered by the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as part of the deal to bring the organisation into the political process and draw it away from violence.
Hamas is buoyed by what it sees as the victory of resistance in forcing the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. But the group now confronts the dilemma of how to translate that into political success and still retain its core support.
Zahar did not rule out Hamas joining the Palestinian government after the election, but said it wants to see whether it could reach consensus with Abbas’s Fatah movement on political objectives and strategies.
Hamas remains sceptical about negotiations, but Zahar said it will not obstruct talks provided they are focused on a swift Israeli withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the West Bank — although he does not believe that is what Sharon wants.
Zahar was critical of the Palestinian leadership’s persistent call for talks with Israel.
”What are negotiations for? If they are going to leave our land and there is a need for negotiations for them to leave, OK. But it is a stupid argument to say that our strategic goal is negotiation. It’s not an aim,” he said. ”If negotiations fail, the people have to resist. So far, we failed as a negotiator, but we succeeded by resisting. So what will happen?”
Alistair Crooke, a former British intelligence officer in regular contact with Hamas’s leadership, said Zahar’s threat to escalate the conflict is partly driven by the election.
”They’re very sensitive to being accused of having just become another Fatah, and therefore there is a lot of emphasis on resistance as being the appropriate tool. It’s also an effort to pre-empt any calls for disarmament,” he said.
”They are also trying to signal that if there is escalation, as they view it, in the West Bank because [Israel] needs to show a toughness after the withdrawal from Gaza, they would respond to that.”
In recent years, Hamas has said it would be prepared to agree to a long-term ceasefire on condition that a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders was created with East Jerusalem as its capital. It would let ”the next generation decide” whether to recognise that as a permanent settlement with Israel.
Hamas’s declared aim is to ”raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine”, meaning the elimination of Israel.
It led the suicide bombing campaign during the last Palestinian intifada, and is listed as a terrorist organisation in Europe.
Israel played a role in establishing Hamas in the 1970s in the hope that it would weaken support for Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation. But the group was taken over by a more militant faction led by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel last year.
Israel’s assault on the West Bank in 2002 reduced Hamas’s attacking ability but helped its growing popularity, in part built on disenchantment with the Palestinian Authority’s inefficiency and corruption. — Guardian Unlimited Â