As the Palestinian bid for statehood comes to a head this week at the United Nations, Hamas remains split on whether to support the controversial move.
The Islamist movement has long sought a Palestinian state and its backing would be crucial for any such state to function. But amid a four-year rift with the Palestinian Authority (PA) led by Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas appears to be hedging its bets.
A failure for Abbas could pave the way for Hamas to expand its influence in the West Bank, where it has long been suppressed by Israeli and PA security forces.
“It is worth a wait,” says Talal Okal, a Gaza-based analyst and columnist. “[Hamas leaders] will congratulate Abbas if his efforts are crowned with success and, of course, will rebuke him if he fails. It’s a smart strategy.”
The bid for statehood at the UN comes on the heels of a two-year state-building initiative launched by PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, a former World Bank official.
Although Fayyad is widely trusted by the United States and Europe, which have poured foreign aid into his reform projects, he is viewed by Hamas as a traitor and a “Western tool” to implement the US’s strategies in the Palestinian territory.
But the disagreement goes beyond personalities. Hamas has been at odds with Fayyad’s Fatah party for four years.
After winning a majority in 2006 Palestinian elections, the Islamist movement violently ousted its secular rival from the Gaza Strip the following year, putting an indefinite end to the tenuous Hamas-Fatah unity government.
‘Egyptian-brokered reconciliation’
Hamas and Fatah have also failed so far to implement an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation process the two sides agreed to in April because Abbas wants to keep Fayyad as the head of the government, whereas Hamas wants to keep him away from Palestinian politics.
“It would be a victory for Fayyad and Abbas if Hamas joined the bid,” says Atef Abu Saif, a professor of political science in Gaza.
“If Hamas supports the attempt, later it will have to accept Fayyad as a prime minister for the expected unity government.”
Hamas leaders are divided over whether to support Abbas’s plan to approach the UN to gain recognition of Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders.
The move goes against Hamas’s charter, which calls for having an independent state on all of Palestinian soil, including Israel. It also calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
The Islamist movement, which is listed as a terror group by Israel, the US and the European Union for carrying out suicide attacks on Israelis, is also against the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and believes that the Palestinian cause can be solved only through armed resistance.
Abbas has said that he will ask the UN to give Palestine full membership as a sovereign state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem along pre-1967 borders.
In late July, Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar described the PA’s efforts to gain state recognition as a political cheat, affirming that his movement is not going to recognise Israel, no matter what price it may have to pay as a result. Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and its top leader in Gaza, said accepting Israel’s right to exist would cost millions of Palestinians their right to live in historical Palestine.
Youssif Rezqa, the political adviser to Hamas Prime Minster Ismail Haniyeh, says Palestinians would be making that sacrifice for a largely symbolic initiative that would not improve daily life in the Palestinian territories and thus it could spell political disaster for the PA.
“This move — will not produce any positive results on the ground. It might be the last nail in the Palestinian Authority’s coffin,” says Rezqa.
But in the West Bank, Hamas’s reaction has been totally different. Hamas leader and speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Aziz Dwaik, announced that he was in favour of the bid and called on Palestinians everywhere to support the Abbas endeavour.
Even if Hamas leaders could agree in principle on the effort to gain a state, says Abu Saif, Hamas would rather watch from distance other than back an idea invented by Fayyad.
If the statehood bid fails, whether through pressure from the US and Israel or through other means, Hamas would be well positioned to capitalise on Abbas’s misfortune. The US, one of five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, has threatened to block any resolution recognising Palestinian statehood and withhold the $550-million in foreign aid it currently gives the Palestinian Authority.
Israel has vowed to stop delivering the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the PA and some Israeli politicians have even suggested annexing parts of the West Bank to Israel.
“Hamas expects the American and Israeli sanctions will weaken the PA politically and financially,” says Okal. “This can give Hamas good ground to restart its pursuit to take over the West Bank.” —