Publication
Omar Shaban Ismail · Arab Reform Initiative · 2017
Analysis of the Gaza Strip between economic and political reality and possible prospects following the 2017 Egypt-Hamas-Dahlan understandings, and their implications for the future of Gaza governance.
Analysis of the Gaza Strip between economic and political reality and possible prospects following the 2017 Egypt-Hamas-Dahlan understandings, and their…
The recent talks between Egypt, Hamas and Mohammed Dahlan, although somewhat unexpected, have ignited the debate over the future of the Gaza Strip. They also took place in the broader context of renewed negotiations between the United States and the Arab states on ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and reshaping the political map of the region. Nevertheless, the future of the Gaza Strip remains unclear. This paper sets out four possible outcomes of these recent talks.
In a new Policy Alternatives paper, Omar Shaban writes about the unexpected understandings reached between Hamas, Egypt and Dahlan, and about the fears and the hopes they have raised that the future of the Gaza Strip is on the point of taking shape; and about the substance of Hamas's recent announcement that it was dissolving the committee it had created to administer the affairs of the Strip. The paper also puts forward a number of recommendations on how to deal with the Palestinian cause.
Shaban says that these understandings came within the framework of an Arab-American vision for ordering the region, recasting the regional axes and resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The sudden variable of the understandings (Dahlan-Hamas-Egypt), however, has produced shifts that can be read through four scenarios.
The first scenario, which deals with achieving reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, is considered the optimal one for Palestinian reunification. But it remains stalled.
The second, based on an understanding between Hamas and Dahlan away from the Palestinian Authority and starting from a humanitarian entry point, could end with the separation of the Gaza Strip and the elimination of any chance of establishing a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if it is carried through without consensus.
The third scenario, which proposes a security approach in exchange for improving living conditions in the Gaza Strip, may be grudgingly acceptable to the parties. But there is a fear that it could turn into a permanent arrangement leading to the establishment of a Gaza statelet.
The fourth, which holds that a new war on the Gaza Strip could break out, is catastrophic, although it is currently unlikely given the Egyptian intervention and the fact that the states of the region have no need for a new war that would disrupt the regional solution and the anticipated rapprochement with Israel in confronting terrorism and Iran.
As for Hamas's announcement in September 2017 that it was dissolving the administrative committee for whose formation it had been punished by the Palestinian Authority, the author sees it as an acknowledgement of the Egyptian effort and a tangible expression of the growing coordination and understanding between the two sides.
The paper concludes by recommending that reconciliation be achieved and that the consensus or national unity government be enabled to carry out its duties; that the Palestinian cause not be dragged into regional conflicts and alignments; and that the resolutions of international legitimacy be upheld as the guarantee for putting an end to any claims that may arise from the shortcomings of the initiatives.
The paper also recommends that the international community move seriously to resolve the Palestinian cause, the resolution of which would help to close the door on terrorism in the region, to curb the waves of migration and to calm regional conflicts.
The understandings recently reached between Hamas, Egypt and Mohammed Dahlan have stirred debate, and fears as well as hopes, that the future of the Gaza Strip is on the point of taking shape, though without any ability as yet to determine its form or its context. These understandings were not expected in the light of the intense enmity between Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since June 2007, and Fatah's strongman, Legislative Council member Mohammed Dahlan, and Egypt, which regards Hamas as part of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation and, in Cairo's view, illegitimate. These understandings came within the framework of an Arab-American vision for ordering the region, recasting the regional axes and resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The features of this vision began to appear after the visit of the King of Jordan to Washington on 4 April 2017, then the visit of the Egyptian President on 6 April 2017, and then the visit of President Mahmoud Abbas on 2 May 2017, in which he affirmed before the Palestinian and Arab community "that he had come to President Trump with something in writing that had been agreed upon with Arab heads of state". The essence of what Abbas's vision for a solution contained is a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Within the framework of the Palestinian President's engagement with the Arab vision, the President set in motion an effort to bring the Gaza Strip back as part of the Palestinian political system, in preparation for dealing with the initiatives being put forward to resolve the conflict. He therefore announced, before the conference of Palestinian ambassadors in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, on 11 April, that the Palestinian Authority was about to "take decisive steps" to confront the dangerous situation that Hamas had created in Gaza by forming the administrative committee. These steps took the form of cutting employees' salaries by 30%, reducing the quantity of electricity, and halting the allocations of Hamas prisoners in Gaza. These measures came amid social and economic challenges bearing down heavily on the residents of the Strip, amid a severe scarcity of financial resources, an almost permanent closure of the Rafah crossing, and repeated Israeli threats to launch a fourth war on the Gaza Strip.
Many believed that these measures by President Mahmoud Abbas would force Hamas to back down and dissolve the administrative committee it had recently formed to run the Gaza Strip in the light of what Hamas says is the failure of the Palestinian national consensus government to carry out its duties. But the sudden variable of the understandings (Dahlan-Hamas-Egypt) produced shifts that can be read through the following scenarios:
The first scenario: achieving Palestinian reconciliation and unifying the Palestinian political system and society
Under this scenario, reconciliation is achieved between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, or between the President and Mohammed Dahlan, or among the three parties together, which is something that depends to a large extent on the interests of the Palestinian parties, on their will and their determination to achieve unity, and on their regional attachments. Under this scenario the administrative committee is dissolved and the consensus government or a national unity government is enabled to run an administration that exercises its duties and powers in the Gaza Strip and prepares for the holding of general elections. In parallel with this, the preparatory committee of the National Council holds a session that seeks to integrate the factions, develop the Organisation, unify the national ranks and restore the unity of the Palestinian political system.
What further increases the parties' need for reconciliation is that Hamas and Dahlan do not possess the regional and international recognition required to deal with the international community and its institutions; they have no diplomatic representation through which to manage the interests of Gaza's residents; and they have no control over the banks, over the issuing of passports and official documents, over the provision of salaries, or over the financing of strategic projects such as a water desalination plant, a power station and a wastewater treatment plant. This ties them formally to the Authority even under an independent self-administration. Egypt, too, will not put on its own record that it was the party that entrenched the division of the Palestinian people and cast doubt on its representation before the world. Even the operation of the Rafah crossing, were it to take place under their administration, would be an Egyptian concession within the framework of a policy of containing Hamas and drawing it away from the Qatari camp. The Authority and the President likewise need to unify the Palestinian people in the face of the American administration's adoption of the regional solution and its giving priority within it to normalising Arab relations with Israel, and in the face of that administration's encouragement of the Israeli vision of establishing a state in Gaza and annexing most of the West Bank in exchange for self-rule in scattered cantons. That would mean the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. And likewise in order to stand up to American pressure over halting the salaries of prisoners and martyrs.
Despite the disagreement between the parties over the first step — that is, dissolving the administrative committee and empowering the consensus government according to the Authority's view, or the consensus government assuming its responsibilities and then dissolving the administrative committee according to Hamas's view — the option of reconciliation, despite the failure to achieve it over ten years, remains the optimal option for all the Palestinian parties. It achieves unity between the West Bank, with its area and its capacities, and the Gaza Strip, with its geographic location and its human resources. It also brings together the Palestinian legitimacy represented by President Abbas and the legitimacy of the resistance. Hamas's latest political document1At a press conference held in Doha on 1/5/2017, Khaled Meshaal announced a document of general principles and policies for Hamas, set out in 42 points, the most prominent of whose provisions is Hamas's acceptance of the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital on the lines of 4 June 1967, together with the return of the refugees and the displaced to the homes from which they were expelled. represents an opportunity for the world to accept its participation in the Palestinian political system after it accepted a state on the 1967 borders.
Developments may push the parties towards rapprochement, which is what Hamas wants, and indeed what Dahlan wants, despite the leaks about their agreement to strip the President of his political powers. Should Hamas draw closer to Dahlan, the Authority may be pushed into offering Hamas a concession in order to draw it away from the alliance with Dahlan. On the other hand, this relationship may push the President into reconciling with Dahlan under Egyptian pressure, in exchange for not forming alliances that would harm the President's standing and his representation of the Palestinian people. Egypt, too, is keen to draw Hamas away from the Qatar-Turkey-Iran axis while at the same time not wishing to harm the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Abbas, which will drive it to find a formula that allows the understandings to continue and brings the President in as a party to them, such that they lead to the dissolution of the administrative committee and the empowerment of the consensus government by handing over to it all the functions in the Strip.2President Abbas: I came to Washington with a written peace plan agreed upon at the Arab level, Sama News, 3/5/2017. Or the formation of a national unity government on the basis of the programme of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and preparation for legislative and presidential elections.3Four different conditions set by Fatah and Hamas before the start of bilateral talks, Sawa, 18/4/2017.
The second scenario: the understandings continue and advance
The emerging variable of rapprochement between Mohammed Dahlan and Hamas, under Egyptian cover and with Emirati funding, could have been an ordinary one given the squabbling between Fatah and Hamas and the sometimes lukewarm relationship between the National Authority and Egypt. But this variable appeared dangerous in the light of the accelerating changes and alignments in the region, in addition to the projects being put forward — new in form, old in substance — to resolve the Palestinian cause according to the calculations of the region rather than on the basis of international resolutions.4Saber, Al-Aref, 2017, Palestinian contradictions on the rise… and Abbas's disregard of the rapprochement between Dahlan and Hamas raises question marks:
The new triangle of rapprochement appears on the surface to be a search for tactics to get past the bad conditions in the Gaza Strip; but in its deeper substance it is a search for a state in Gaza, in line with a consensual Arab solution to the Palestinian cause that America is seeking to adopt, according to Israeli measurements. This deal is known as the deal of the century, and it entails bringing Israel into the region as one of its natural components, over which there is no dispute! Dr Anwar Eshki* has spelled out these new desires, saying: "The Kingdom will move towards normalisation with Israel after the Arab Initiative* has been implemented". For his part, Netanyahu put forward a slightly different initiative, in which the Palestinian state would be a confederal union guaranteed by Jordan and Egypt, with the matter of Jerusalem left to the end. The initiative is now under study in the United States.
The danger of the Israeli initiative may go beyond the "Arab Initiative"[5], which, according to Ofir Israeli**, is rejected and does not secure Israel's safety; Israel therefore offers a new initiative that includes "recognition of the Jewish majority, along with demographic separation, resolving the refugee problem through their naturalisation, and recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan".[6]
The danger of this proposal lies in the fact that it coincides with Arab weakness: the pressure will most likely be directed at the Palestinian party, the weakest one.[7] This proposal, which will collide with President Mahmoud Abbas's refusal, could be pushed through by means of the rapprochement between Hamas and Dahlan, to which Israel has no objection.[8] Dahlan wants a role in shaping Palestinian policy, and this could provide Hamas with a covering that gets it past its branding as terrorist. The possibility that Hamas would agree arises from the fact that, according to Eshki, it "agreed to similar initiatives when the Brotherhood ruled Egypt, and Hamas's latest document showed its agreement to the two-state solution".[9]
It is true that the substance of this rapprochement among the rival parties is to overcome the powerful adversary Mahmoud Abbas; but its danger lies in the response to the new initiatives, since it could result in the squandering of the Palestinian national project by severing the Gaza Strip from the project of a Palestinian state, especially if Egypt continues to support this rapprochement for motives, the foremost of which are:
Preserving its national security amid the continuation of terrorist operations in Sinai. This could accelerate the steps towards an understanding with Hamas, by placing the interest of its national security ahead of the political file, especially if Hamas demonstrates tangible security cooperation.
The dissipation of the danger of the Gaza Strip sliding into a state of chaos as the severity of the division escalates.
The link between its economic interests and the Gulf, and its alignment with the Saudi axis in confronting the Qatari-Turkish-Iranian axis, which requires containing Hamas and drawing it away from that axis.
Whatever path the tripartite rapprochement takes, its latent tendencies will undermine the existing institutions and structures of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and its Authority if it becomes entrenched. But the more likely case is that Egypt prefers to conduct tactical tests in order to pressure President Mahmoud Abbas into making concessions, either towards Dahlan, or towards Hamas, or concessions that would draw him into the proposed Arab solution.
The third scenario: the understandings mark time (the situation remains as it is)
These understandings amount to no more than tactics to relieve Gaza, given the constraints, the diplomatic impotence and the harsh reality imposed by the region, and the state of destitution and collapse in the Gaza Strip. Egypt will not bypass the Palestinian President, and the region has not settled its choices with regard to the Palestinian President and his removal from the scene, at least as far as the Gaza Strip is concerned.[10] The spokesman for the Egyptian presidency, Ambassador Alaa Youssef, affirmed that: "Egypt does not sponsor any agreements between Dahlan and Hamas that would harm the unity of the Palestinian people and its legitimacy away from the Palestine Liberation Organisation and President Abbas, but Egypt does not prevent Palestinians from sitting down with one another for the sake of reconciliation between brothers".[11]
The Egyptian leadership appears to have capitalised on Qatar's retreat by drawing Hamas away from it, in addition to securing its borders with the Gaza Strip, severing any presumed relationship between Hamas and groups in Sinai, and relieving Gaza so that it does not explode.[12] In return, Hamas obtains a number of gains, foremost among them the easing of the severity of the blockade, given the movement's limited options and the deterioration of conditions in the Gaza Strip.[13] As for Israel, the Maariv writer Yossi Melman says: "Israel intervened secretly from behind the scenes; it is living a dilemma in responding to the Authority's request to reduce electricity, but it does not want an explosion or a military escalation in the Gaza Strip", and this is confirmed by Avigdor Lieberman's statement that: "President Abbas's pressure on Hamas will drag it into a war with Israel".[14]
It appears that no one favours the scenario of the Gaza Strip exploding, and everyone still draws a complete distinction between weakening Hamas through a particular formula (one that guarantees a transfer of power that is not abrasive) and harming its ability to control the situation in the Strip; because the effects of a scenario in which the Strip collapses may not stop at the limits of weakening Hamas, but would open the way to chaos and to the expansion of jihadist groups amid the deteriorating conditions and unemployment. This would be a burden on the shoulders of Egypt and Israel. Egypt's border with Gaza would become far more porous, while Israel would be required to bear legal responsibility as an occupying power, and so on.
The fourth scenario: the war options
First: weakening Hamas without ending its rule
Israel regards Hamas as a hostile "terrorist" organisation that must be deterred. It also sees a need not to reach the point of the complete collapse of the system in Gaza, which is small in size and densely populated, can be contained from outside and is difficult to penetrate from within. In addition, the division has become one of the components of Israel's strategy in dealing with the Palestinians, and what is required is a fixed strategic address in the Strip that can be deterred and can be dealt with. This determines the ceiling of any military operation.[15] But this does not mean that Israel hesitates to deliver a blow that weakens Hamas and forces it to produce a new Palestinian body to negotiate with, through an Egyptian role taken up in earnest, as happened in the 2014 war, when Azzam al-Ahmad headed the negotiating delegation.[16]
The formation of a semi-independent statelet in Gaza, tied to a regional incubator, namely Egypt, while conceding administrative control to Hamas, is a suitable option for Israel.[17] Especially since the security dimension, which concerns Israel first and foremost, is secured through a constantly updated early warning system for the borders and pre-emptive deterrence mechanisms; it has not ceased its aerial bombardment of targets it classifies as "potentially dangerous".[18] The existence of the Hamas-Dahlan-Egypt understanding can also be exploited in the event of a scenario in which the Authority collapses, and can serve as a cover for pushing through any understandings with Israel whose headline is Dahlan and whose substance is Hamas.
Second: a confrontation that ends Hamas's rule
This scenario is supported by Israeli security warnings which hold that Hamas will be able, within two years, to threaten the Israeli protection project, which calls for the launching of a comprehensive military operation.[19] Hamas's maintaining of the priority of armed action among the tools of the conflict is a matter that is reflected in Israel's strategy in any coming confrontation whose headline would be the ending of Hamas. This is especially so given that the region is moving — under American sponsorship and Saudi leadership — towards ridding itself of terrorist movements, according to a Saudi[20] and American classification that includes Hamas.[21]
On the other hand, Hamas may move towards a war in order to lift the suffocating effects of the blockade on the movement, foremost among them: the closure of the political horizon, relative military weakness, a shift in public opinion, and regional transformations that affect the will of Hamas's allies. Hamas's decisions to break a truce usually go back to a combination of a number of these factors and not to one of them alone.[22]
The continuation of the threat scenario, as far as Israel is concerned, is sufficient reason to launch a wide war that would have no political purpose of reaching an agreement or changing the government; rather its aim would be to exhaust Hamas, to engrave the strength of the Israeli Defence Forces in Palestinian consciousness, to delay the coming conflict, to renew deterrence, and so on".[23] The price would be paid by the residents of the Strip, who might take refuge in Sinai to escape the Israeli cleansing operation, amid an Arab and international acceptance that raises no objection, similar to the operations to cleanse cities such as Mosul, Sirte and Raqqa of organisations classified as terrorist, such as the Islamic State organisation, with no regard for the appalling numbers of civilian dead and the displacements, which have become acceptable at the level of public opinion and the media in the West. This scenario leaves the door open as to the nature of the system that will take power in Gaza after the war.
Hours before the completion of this paper, Hamas announced, during a meeting of its political bureau in Cairo in the third week of September 2017, the dissolution of the administrative committee for whose formation it had been punished by the Palestinian Authority, a punishment that had a negative effect on economic activity and on the tax revenues collected by the Gaza government. Hamas's announcement was regarded as an acknowledgement of the Egyptian effort and a tangible expression of the growing coordination and understanding between the two sides. The importance of this decision cannot be overlooked, for it confirms:
Hamas's clear and growing inclination to move closer to the Egyptian position, which necessarily means moving further away from the alliance with Qatar.
That the new leadership of Hamas is continuing its new policy, which can be summed up as moving closer to the Egyptian, Saudi and Emirati axis and away from the Muslim Brotherhood.
With this step Hamas can be considered to have thrown the ball back into the Palestinian President's court, after it had been accused of being the reason for the stagnation of the reconciliation process. The President is therefore expected to respond by reversing the punitive measures against the Strip and by asking the consensus government to visit and hold some of its meetings there, in order to fill the vacuum created by the dissolution of the administrative committee.
A reading of…
Topic: Gaza Governance — Hamas · Egypt · Dahlan · Palestinian Politics · reconciliation · Gaza Economy — Text © Arab Reform Initiative — archived here with attribution to the source. — Original source