What has Gaza gained since Hamas won four years ago?

Michael Young
The National (UAE)
11 March '10

As Israel and the Palestinian Authority prepare to resume indirect talks, through American mediation, some are insisting that the Islamist movement Hamas must be brought into the process. Hamas, the argument goes, is capable of obstructing progress in negotiations, so that only by engaging the group can the United States and the international community avoid such an outcome. The rationale is naive.

It is naive, above all, because it overlooks the extent to which Hamas has undermined the core principle guiding the regional strategy of the Palestinians until the death of Yasser Arafat. Under its late leader, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation defended what was known as the “independent Palestinian decision”, which meant ensuring the Palestinian cause would not fall under the control of individual Arab regimes. Among Mr Arafat’s bitterest rivals was Syria’s President Hafez al Assad, who repeatedly sought, and failed, to bring the PLO under Syrian authority.

Hamas has been far less successful than Mr Arafat in exploiting Arab contradictions. Where the one-time PLO chairman was able during the 1970s to play Arab regimes off against one another, and even blackmail states for concessions, Hamas evolved in a very different environment. The movement opposed the Oslo process during the 1990s, and when it failed and Israel reoccupied the West Bank in 2002, Hamas was able to take advantage of the renewed tension, and the growing discredit of Mr Arafat and his Fatah movement, to gain politically in Palestinian areas.

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