Daoud Kuttab: Israel has Revived Support for Hamas

Daoud Kuttab is an internationally well known and respected Palestinian liberal. He has been critical of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Today he writes in the Washington Post about one impact of the assault on Gaza we might not have predicted: shoring up support for a Hamas that had been in decline.

For two years, the Islamic Resistance Movement (known by its Arabic acronym, Hamas) has been losing support internally and externally. This wasn't the case in the days after the party came to power democratically in early 2006; despite being unjustly ostracized by the international community for its anti-Israeli stance, Hamas enjoyed the backing of Palestinians and other Arabs. Having won a decisive parliamentary majority on an anti-corruption platform promising change and reform, Hamas worked hard to govern better than had Fatah, its rival and predecessor.

Things began to sour when Hamas violently seized control of Gaza, but even then, Hamas enjoyed considerable domestic support -- and much goodwill externally. Then the movement turned down every legitimate offer from its nationalist PLO rivals and Egyptian mediators to pursue reconciliation, and support for it began to slip. Things got worse in November when a carefully planned national unity effort from the Egyptians failed because, at the very last minute, Hamas's leaders refused to show up in Cairo. Failure to accept this roundtable invitation greatly upset the Egyptians, and they and other Arab leaders scolded Hamas publicly. Omar Suleiman, the head of the Egyptian intelligence service who was organizing the meeting, termed Hamas's reasons for rebuffing the invitation "unwarranted excuses." Hamas sought for its leader a seating position equivalent to the Palestinian president's, and it wanted Hamas security prisoners held in the West Bank to be released. Palestinian nationalists insist that Hamas's rejection of unity talks was solely to avoid the PLO's demand for new presidential and parliamentary elections.

A poll carried out afterward by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center showed that most Palestinians blamed Hamas for the failure of the talks. The survey, which was sponsored by the German Fredrich Ebert Foundation, found that 35.3 percent of respondents believed Hamas bore more responsibility for the stalemate. Fatah was blamed by 17.9 percent, and 12.3 percent said both Fatah and Hamas were responsible.

I would argue that Israel has a long standing strategy of building up it's worst enemies precisely so it can claim that there is "no one to talk to."

For years, as the PLO moderated to a 2 state position, Israel gave indirect support to the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, which was seen as a useful counterweight to the Palestinian national movement. At the time, the MB was opposed to direct confrontation with Israel, so it looked like a good idea at the time.... (70s-80s)

Israel dislodged the PLO from Lebanon, but got Hezbollah in it's place.

Israel got tired of Arafat and did its best to clip the wings of the Palestinian Authority. Enter a Hamas victory, stage right.

Inside Israel, the establishment supported its own candidates via lists actually controlled by Zionist parties. The Israeli Communist Party was seen as the primary enemy, despite that group's commitment to a two state solution. Now, the Communist led list is struggling against two forces even more threatening to Israel - Balad, an explicitly nationalist party, and the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, which supports boycotting Israel's elections and is known to be close to Hamas.

Now, on the heels of the destruction of life and infrastructure in Gaza, expect more support for the extremist elements within Hamas, for Islamic Jihad, and for an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity from around the world aimed specifically at Hamas, not just the Palestinian people.

Good job, Israel.