Amira Hass : How Hamas holds onto power

 

How Hamas rules the Gaza Strip

HAARETZ.COM

 

The Israeli siege makes suppression by Hamas even more effective, because there’s nowhere to escape to.

By Amira Hass

A year after the Hamas movement assured the public that a war had ended yet again in victory and Jerusalem would be liberated the same way, the vast majority of Gazans are ready to say that the 2014 conflict with Israel was a grim defeat. More than a year after Hamas agreed to a reconciliation government with Fatah, in the hope that this would free it of the civil and financial burdens of rule, it is having to impose local purchase taxes – which anger the impoverished population – in order to underwrite the ongoing activity of its ministries and staff in Gaza. The ruins, together with the disabled and wounded from the wars, remain a common sight. At 43 percent of unemployment – 60 percent among young people – about half the inhabitants of the besieged enclave say they want to emigrate. The proportion of those suffering from prolonged trauma is hard to quantify. Nevertheless, Hamas remains in power.

This article is part of a series:

There’s no escaping Gaza
The last Gaza war – and the next
Israel's deceptive diplomatic success
The campaign that forgot about Gaza
Have Israelis really forgotten so quickly?
Life in the ruins of post-war Gaza
The broken promise to rebuild Gaza
How Hamas holds onto power
Still eyeless in Gaza

What keeps Hamas in power in the Gaza Strip is more similar to what keeps Fatah in power in the West Bank than either rival would be willing to admit. Both movements are rooted in Palestinian society and its wont. Hamas institutions function even when Israel attacks them and religiosity continues to stimulate basic trust in it. Fatah is disfigured by functional, leadership and moral scleroses, but its ideological flexibility is generally appealing. In addition, people in the West Bank depend on the Palestinian Authority as the area’s largest employer.

Palestinian fighters from the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, stand inside an underground tunnel in Gaza, August 2014.Photo by Reuters

Both ruling movements resort to means of suppression and intimidation to quell rancor and criticism. In the case of Gaza, the Israeli siege makes the suppression by Hamas more effective: there’s nowhere to escape to.

The proportion of those suffering from prolonged trauma in Gaza is hard to quantify. Nevertheless, Hamas remains in power.

“The establishment of the Palestinian Authority was a disaster; its dismantlement will be a greater disaster,” said a member of Islamic Jihad in Hebron in a conversation with Haaretz. He was referring to the inter-tribal and personal feuds that are liable to deteriorate into clashes between armed gangs in the absence of the Palestinian police. Clearly, Fatah supporters will offer a similar argument for the continued presence of the PA. Meanwhile, an official of Hamas’ political wing told Haaretz his movement is not abandoning its de facto exclusive control in the Gaza Strip “because we are afraid of the chaos that will be created in the Gaza Strip.”

The reconciliation government officially resigned on June 22, without letting Hamas participate in the process. A new government hasn't been formed yet, and there are contradictory messages regarding its makeup: whether it will include Hamas or not, and whether it will be made up of technocrats or political representatives. Notwithstanding the mutual hostility, the ambiguity signals the common fear that acknowledging the failure of the reconciliation project will allow most of the thin cords that still bind those two segments of Palestinian society to snap.

About 40 percent of the reconciliation government's current budget is transferred to Gaza for various payments: salaries, which are actually unemployment benefits for tens of thousands of public-sector employees who, by order of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, haven’t been working since 2007; various welfare allowances; electricity and diesel fuel; and the transfer of patients for treatment outside of Gaza.

A crowd gathers during a rally in support of Hamas in Gaza City, August 2014.Photo by Reuters

An official of Hamas’ political wing said his movement is not abandoning its de facto exclusive control in the Gaza Strip 'because we are afraid of the chaos that will be created in the Gaza Strip.'

Even when the Hamas government was at the height of its power and fiscal comfort, the PA did not stop its payments. True, the majority of the funds was allocated to its loyalists, but in a society with a strong tradition of family solidarity, the effectiveness of payments is diffuse.

Hamas militants display weapons as they celebrate what they say was a victory over Israel, in front of a destroyed house in the Shejaia neighborhood east of Gaza City, August 2014.Photo by Reuters

Absurdly, then, PA funds help contribute to sustaining Hamas rule. At present, with Hamas’ coffers almost empty due to lack of revenues and its resolution to use the money that arrives from abroad for armaments, another bizarre situation is being perpetuated: Public-sector active employees appointed since 2007 do not get salaries. But the PA employees in Gaza, who are not working, get paid. The PA’s donor states are not happy with the situation, but still continue to donate (albeit less than what they pledged). They, too, are concerned about the outbreak of chaos if the ongoing humanitarian crisis is not constantly managed slightly above the level of blowing up.

The reconciliation is not working because Abbas continues to hope, as he hoped in 2007, that Hamas as a mass movement will dissolve under pressure – Israeli, Egyptian, global. Hamas has reservations about reconciliation because the implication is that it will have to share governance of Gaza with Fatah, but not in the West Bank where Israel will not allow Hamas an overt political presence.

Palestinian members of Hamas' armed wing take part in the funeral of their comrades in Gaza City in June 2014.Photo by Reuters

The difference between the two regions lies in the severity and dramatic thrust of the perpetual treading of a thin line between disaster and routine. In Gaza, as in the West Bank, maintenance of what exists ranges between a genuine sense of responsibility and a cynical pretense of caring. The donor states play a major role in maintaining the status quo. Without the presence of UN and other relief agencies, the civilian population in Gaza would have been completely abandoned during the wars and between them. Without the humanitarian aid of those institutions to the Palestinian residents of Area C (where Israel has full civil and security control) in the West Bank, without the support of the donor states to the Palestinian current budget and development budget, the economic stagnation created by the Israeli regime of prohibitions and restrictions would be more volatile. The maintenance of the status quo fits Israeli policy like a glove.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to CBS' Charlie Rose, July 2014: 'We fight the occupiers.'Video by CBS

Both rival ruling movements were maneuvered into becoming part of a geopolitical reality that Israel has been shaping relentlessly since 1991: the enclaves reality, aka the Bantustans – in short, the deliberate torpedoing of the two-state solution. The internal Palestinian disagreements are natural. But the political bifurcation and creation of a dual, crippled self-government is a logical result of the disconnect imposed by Israel.

The self-government that Hamas and Fatah are maintaining under the aegis of the Israeli occupation and dominance is nourished by promises of liberation and independence for the long term, which are mortgaged in favor of the short term and the immediate interests of each ruling stratum and its cronies.

The reconciliation is not working because Abbas continues to hope, as he hoped in 2007, that Hamas as a mass movement will dissolve under pressure – Israeli, global, Egyptian. Hamas has reservations about reconciliation because the implication is that it will have to share governing of Gaza with Fatah, but not in the West Bank where Israel will not allow Hamas an overt political presence.

The enclaves are developing a logic of their own, and their leaderships and inhabitants are growing accustomed to a certain status quo in which dramatic changes frighten them – because, experience tells, such changes are only for the worse. The self-government that Hamas and Fatah are maintaining under the aegis of the Israeli occupation and dominance is nourished by promises of liberation and independence for the long term, which are mortgaged in favor of the short term and the immediate interests of each ruling stratum and its cronies.

Armed struggle, popular struggle, negotiations, diplomacy, cultivation of culture and education as struggle, and so on – each government glories in these means of liberation, and in the meantime enhances, ad hoc, its mundane existence.

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