..[ البســـالة ].. - Hamas is itself divided

Hamas is itself divided

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ALL is not well in the camp of Hamas, the Palestinians’ Islamist faction that rules the Gaza Strip. No sooner had its leader in exile, Khaled Meshal (pictured), declared his readiness for Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Palestinians’ more moderate Fatah faction, to relaunch negotiations with Israel, than one of Hamas’s leaders in Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, said Mr Abbas did not speak for the Palestinians: “Our programme is against negotiations in this way because they are a waste of time.”

Formally Mr Meshal, who is based in Syria’s capital, Damascus, speaks for Hamas. But with turmoil there and uncertainty over the policy of Egypt towards the Palestinians—it has said it will open its border crossing to Gaza—Mr Meshal and his exiled coterie have looked homeless and weak. And Hamas leaders in Gaza say they are keen to see the movement’s centre of gravity shift back home. “The main headquarters of the Hamas movement is in the occupied lands,” says Mr Zahar. “Its real weight is there.”

Rival visions have worsened the row. Whereas Mr Meshal relies on diplomatic and foreign ties for his influence, Hamas leaders in Gaza depend more on their own resources. Mr Meshal looks to reconciliation with Mr Abbas’s Fatah movement as a means to regain a national role, and has long sought a place in the Palestinians’ umbrella body, the Palestine Liberation Organisation. But Hamas leaders in Gaza think they already have a big enough platform.

Depending more on friends outside Palestine, Mr Meshal faces pressure from Islamist movements elsewhere in the Arab world to show a more conciliatory face. Hamas’s harsh de facto one-party state in Gaza clashes with the idea of an enlightened democratic movement that sister Islamist groups seek to portray.

Mr Meshal’s friends speak of a “transformative process” whereby Hamas re-emerges as a pluralist and progressive outfit able to co-operate with other factions to achieve a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But that jars with Gaza’s Islamists, some of whom saw the agreement to reconcile with Fatah as a plot to divest Hamas of its hard-won power and to scuttle its Islamist plans. Mr Zahar says Gaza’s forces would stay firmly under Hamas control during a proposed year-long interim period leading up to elections. He also rejects the mooted idea that some security forces answerable to Mr Abbas would be allowed back into Gaza. And he ruled out an agreement on a joint programme with Fatah. Although Mr Zahar stresses an Islamising agenda, Mr Meshal highlights the goal he shares with Fatah of establishing a Palestinian state.

Such tensions could sink the reconciliation accord initialled in Cairo on May 4th. An interim technocratic government, due to be set up within days of the signing ceremony, could take weeks to emerge. The new government is meant to be filled with technocrats, but both factions are bickering over candidates for prime, foreign and interior minister. Mr Abbas has sounded keen for the current prime minister, Salam Fayyad, to stay on. But Mr Fayyad’s chances of doing so dipped a few days ago when he had a heart attack in Texas. True reconciliation is still some way off.

http://www.economist.com/node/18745118