While this deep scar has been unable to form a scab, the tragedy of Palestine is entering into a new phase with the Hamas-Al-Fatah conflict. First I should note that Hamas, which was victorious in the elections held 18 months ago, has been unable to give the support it received from the Palestinian people international legitimization. Although it has made a few attempts to this end, Hamas couldn’t prove itself strong enough to carry the responsibility of being a government. It continued acting as an underground organization still fighting the occupiers, whereas it could have well been possible to turn Hamas’ election victory into a very good chance of finding a lasting solution to the Palestine problem. After all, the soundest peace agreements are made between falcons. But this couldn’t be achieved.
Equally guilty in this are Hamas -- which overlooked the necessities of realpolitik, acted very hesitantly about drawing a wide line between itself and terrorism and did not recognize Israel’s right to exist -- and Israel and the international community, with the US taking the lead, appearing to have approved of Hamas’ entry into the elections but turning the victory into a problem and later attempting to teach it a lesson by imposing international embargos and all sorts of restrictions.
Maybe it’s possible to understand Israel’s stance. It is not easy to establish a dialogue with an armed political movement that doesn’t recognize one’s right to exist. The mistake of Hamas at this point was its inability to internalize the reality imposed by the region and to draw a broad line between itself and terrorist actions. Whenever we encounter Israeli officials, the chief subject of our talks is naturally Palestine. How sincere they are, I don’t know; however this is what they always say: We expect Hamas to change, not to cease to exist.
Nevertheless, I think Hamas has undergone quite a change in this process. At the very least, we haven’t heard of any suicide attacks perpetrated against Israeli civilians by Hamas in the last 18 months. Is this a small thing? However, the Hamas government has always been deprived of the rights granted to others. It could be more likely for Hamas to have grown more mature and become more responsible if it had been offered some carrots rather than sticks forever.
Now, I think, all the chances have been missed. Moreover, it seems no longer possible to talk about a cause of a united Palestine. Above all, Palestine is also suffering from the differentiation of the political expectations of different countries who financially aid it, which is something encountered by all independence movements launched in the aftermath of occupations. This is very similar to the internal divisions we have seen in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
However, the division in Palestine is far deeper than just the division between Al-Fatah, supported by the West, and Hamas, supported by Iran and Syria, because there is an optimum socio-political ground for Al-Fatah to be more active in the West Bank, and for Hamas to be more active in the Gaza Strip. This ground is maybe more effective than the stance of the international community that fans the flames of separation. The separation between Hamas and Al-Fatah fits in with the division amongst the Palestinian society.
The persisting situation is that Al-Fatah, the long-time power on the receiving end of foreign aid, has formed a bourgeoisie loyal to it by distributing these resources -- the natural consequence of being the only side recognized by international initiatives -- among its proponents. Hamas, on the contrary, represents the poor people, who have been divested of their share.
The tribal formations in Palestine further aggravate these divisions. While the Qaysis living in the West Bank mostly support Al-Fatah, the Yemenis form the ground where Hamas is based. Moreover, the settling in the Beersheva region of the immigrant Bedouins, who functioned as a communication device between the two tribes under the Ottoman and Jordanian rule, seems to have destroyed the possibility of communication between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, namely, between the Qaysis and the Yemenis.
In addition, while Al-Fatah tries to carry on the Palestinian cause with politics and diplomacy, Hamas, not satisfied with defending this cause, is closely interested in people’s health, food and education needs as a social aid organization. And here lies the secret of their election victory.
While Al-Fatah possesses a national socialist ideology with a stance resembling that of Baath, which was a movement in vogue in the Cold War years, Hamas, based on the Muslim Brothers, whose roots have international views, is known to have a perspective wider than the Palestinian cause. We can also not overlook the fact that the foundation manifesto of Hamas, where Israel’s right to exist is denied, says that Islamic regimes are to be established in all Arab countries after destroying Israel. From this perspective, the revolutionist mindset of Hamas maybe persists at a level that surpasses Iran’s revolutionist mindset, and this seriously disconcerts the current Arab administrations.
The rise of Hamas is also a product of the reactions shown to the corruption of Al-Fatah’s political teams. Hamas, which took over control in the Gaza Strip, has wide public support as it is targeting putting an end to the corrupt system.
So, what will happen next? It is a bit difficult to foresee that in a region where everything can change at any given moment. However, the Gaza Strip may become a small satellite state like between 1956 and 1967 under the control of Hamas and under the domination of Egypt. And the West Bank, on the other hand, may turn into a different satellite state under domination of Israel; a model of prosperity for the entire Palestinian nation, with the support of the US and the West. Who knows?
Since this cannot be a real solution to the Palestine problem, the losing side will again be the Palestinian people, and the Islamic world will be exposed to more radical groups who will be further sharpened in the face of people’s tragedy. Additionally, I don’t think it is necessary to repeat that the whole world will be affected by the terror to be created by the heightening radicalism of the groups in question.
