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Egypt and Palestine: Internecine Alliance
Paul Martin

Cairo's Muchabarat, the intelligence headquarters, appeared to be a fitting venue for a Palestinian and an Egyptian diplomatic triumph. Inside its modern façade the two major Palestinian movements, plus other political factions and some independents, signed a Unity Agreement in mid-2011 that may - or may not - end five years of unremitting hostility and intermittent internecine warfare.

It suits the Egyptians, aiming to achieve a new image, to appear involved and successful in bringing Palestinians together. But is the agreement like the impressive Muchabarat exterior - just a façade?

Lurking behind the plentiful expressions of unity, brotherhood, and reconciliation is a far less wholesome reality. Both Fatah and Hamas are weaker and more internally divided than they have been for at least a decade. The Unity Government is itself not much more than a pretence: it is a means of creating a breathing space while both movements gear up to enter a new and less-than-stable era in the wake of the current upheavals around the Arab world.

The right noises emerged from both camps as the Agreement was signed, with the Egyptians making a significant statement of priorities. Their new intelligence chief spoke first and introduced only Mahmoud Abbas, who besides being the chairman of his political party and of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, is also the President of the Palestinian Authority. Only when he had finished did Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal stand up to make a low-key speech. Abbas had made it clear that the coming changes in government, with an assortment of 'independents' and technocrats maintaining a caretaker government while an election is prepared a year hence, would be handled under his own patronage as the PA president.

But in truth the irascible Abbas has very little credibility inside his supposed heartland, the West Bank. Most locals consider that any credit for improving economic conditions and somewhat easier Israeli-controlled inter-city movement stems from reforms by the exiting Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, an independent.

Even Abbas' apparent masterstroke - aiming at a United Nations (UN) declaration in September of Palestinian statehood - is beginning to backfire. Hamas is openly against it, as is the world's major power, the United States (US), for different reasons. And this declaration, while a diplomatic setback for Israel, would also allow the Jewish State a much freer hand on the ground, and provide a potential means to justify reneging on its own commitments under the 1993 Oslo Accords. In a recent document the Israeli Foreign Ministry pointed out that a Palestinian-Israeli Interim agreement of 1995, backed by the Quartet, "expressly prohibits unilateral action by either side to change the status of the West Bank and Gaza." Ominously, it adds: "Clearly, premature recognition of a Palestinian state would render the negotiating process and the ideals of compromise and dialogue meaningless."

But far more worrying for Fatah is the likely consequence within its own support base when or if the much-trumpeted recognition fails to deliver any improvements on the ground, in economic or security terms. Also, Abbas would be under attack from the huge Palestinian Diaspora, for in effect forsaking claims to what Fatah declares in its own Charter must be won back through armed revolution - all of Palestine, including the 78 percent that comprises pre-1967 Israel. The never-amended Fatah Constitution declares in Article 17: "Armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine", and is (says Article 19) "a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated."

At the very least, to accept a UN resolution recognising an as-yet-fictitious State would imply an end to the pretense that a 'right of return' by descendants of those who left, fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war can be achieved. Hence the strange insertion by Abbas in his 'Unity Government' speech of a demand for implementing the six-decades-old Resolution 194, which incorporates that very same right of return, or compensation, for all Arabs who fled the formerly British-mandated Palestine in the 1948-1949 conflict. Under a two-State solution the descendants of those refugees would be offered places to live in the West Bank and Gaza. Some Palestinian leaders, according to documents leaked to Al Jazeera, have accepted that flooding Israel itself with descendants of Palestinian refugees is not viable, but Abbas seems to be reluctant to relinquish the notion.

For its part, Hamas has both tactical and ideological reasons to oppose the UN move. If the world recognises a Palestinian state, any involvement Hamas then has in a Unity Government would appear (to Hamas' own supporters and external backers) to be a volte face by the Islamist movement over its real and often-stated objective: the elimination of Israel. Efforts to distance Hamas from its own charter have been made in interviews with or articles placed in some western newspapers of record, but even then Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal has said there is "no chance" of Hamas ever cancelling the "Charter of Allah".

In Gaza the movement's popularity has plummeted as Gazans see Hamas leaders behaving as badly as their Fatah predecessors in terms of cronyism and corruption, and probably worse in terms of repression. Some normal citizens chafe too at what they see as petty Islamist restrictions, like banning women from being given rides on motorbikes, or the display of lingerie in clothes-shops windows. Most seriously damaging has been the ongoing financial gains made by Hamas figures in the tunnel-smuggling business, and the behaviour of Hamas leaders during the movement's failed and at times timorous response to the Israeli invasion of January 2009. Many Hamas soldiers donned civilian clothes, Hamas officials hijacked petrol and other supplies from civilians, and the leadership hid in hospitals or left the Strip altogether, not re-emerging until many days after the Israelis withdrew. Israel's overreaction to the Turkish flotilla temporarily bolstered Hamas' image, but that effect is long gone, and it had to suppress with violence a demonstration by young people in Gaza earlier this year to support the Arab Spring. Referring to some of the Islamist restrictions imposed by his movement, the new deputy foreign minister Ghazi Hamad admitted to BBC's Newsnight that Hamas had "made mistakes".

Instead of holding fast to a new Unity Government after elections are held, at least one influential strand within Hamas is advocating a withdrawal from involvement in direct rule. This group considers that its four-year reign in Gaza has produced more negatives than positives. A return to its old role of 'Islamic resistance movement', criticising the efforts of others who misrule, seems advantageous to this group.

It also means Hamas can wait to assess what benefits it may gain if, for example, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood - which founded Hamas and still has close ties to the organisation - becomes the most powerful force across the border, and whether there are knock-on effects in Jordan. Syria's internal difficulties are not good news for Hamas: it appears the minority Alawite dominated regime there will succeed in crushing the revolt, and therefore weaken the Sunni-run Muslim Brotherhood. Also, Syria, while consumed with internal rebuilding, may have less desire or ability to support the role of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas. There are reports that Meshaal is even putting out feelers to relocate from Damascus to Cairo or Qatar.

By being part of a planned new government, Hamas may benefit in western capitals from the cloak of international respectability it might acquire. But it would have some very difficult rhetorical problems in explaining to its regional or Islamist backers why Hamas rejects Israel's right to exist while being part of a government that is negotiating with it. "We are not a negotiating organisation," the BBC 'Newsnight' programme was told in Gaza in June 2011 by Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar. This comment reinforces the Hamas Charter's statement in Article 13 that "so-called peaceful solutions...to resolve the Palestinian problem are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion...".

There are other reasons to be sceptical about the longevity of a Hamas-Fatah alliance. While they have the same stated objective of destroying Israel, Hamas and Fatah hate each other. It was as recently as mid-July 2010 that Hamas' Gaza premier Ismail Haniya accused Fatah of "waging a war against Islam." Then too, there are serious internal divisions within both movements. Fatah's now disgraced and expelled former Gaza official Mohamed Dahlan says Abbas controls a 1.3 billion dollars slush-fund secretly set up by his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. Inside Hamas there are reports of leadership rivalries even within the armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, and of tensions based on finance, ideology, or personality clashes, between parts of the Hamas leadership in Gaza and the external leadership under Meshaal.

If Hamas and Fatah were to stay the course and implement a free and fair election, opinion polls show Hamas would lose in Gaza - a serious international humiliation that it may decide not to risk. Against that, it might win in the West Bank, where Fatah has also shown its iron fist and its disdain for freedom of expression, and has only marginally reduced its traditional corruption.

It seems unlikely that a Hamas-Fatah unity government would survive for long. The enmity of the two movements' military wings would not evaporate. After all, in Gaza and the West Bank there are many scores to settle. I once asked Haniya whether he was ashamed of the fact that, during the last couple of months before we spoke, 98 of the last 100 Palestinians who died violently in Gaza were killed by other Palestinians, not by Israel. "I am not happy about it," was his response. But investigations into the savage internecine clashes have never taken place.

Indeed Haniya and I were speaking even as he was conducting talks that led to a previous Unity Government deal, in 2007. It had also been cemented by a solemn swearing ceremony in which Meshaal, Haniya and Abbas, under the tutelage of the Saudi king, donned the white clothes necessary for a pilgrimage to Mecca and swore at the holy Qaba stone that they would work peacefully together. Yet in less than four months the Unity Government collapsed amid a bloody Hamas takeover of Gaza.

There is now room for independents to emerge as a serious alternative. But in their elections, the people of Gaza and the West Bank may end up with a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.

(Paul Martin was a BBC Correspondent in Cairo from 1978-1983, and has reported on and filmed in Gaza on many visits since the Intifada there began in 2000.)