Gli arabi saranno a favore di Gaza?/ La tregua di Gaza entra in vigore
– Hamas deve scegliere se divenire un gruppo solo politico (che secondo il Brookings Doha Center sarebbe la linea di Khaled Meshal, a lungo considerato uno dei falchi del movimento, e di recente dimostratosi più colomba, più pragmatico, grazie all’influenza egiziana) o rimanere un gruppo di guerriglieri contro Israele.
– Dall’attacco israeliano del 2008, la situazione della regione è mutata: l’Egitto, uno dei due soli paesi arabi che hanno un trattato di pace con Israele, è ora guidato dai Fratelli Musulmani, di cui Hamas è figlio.
o Il presidente egiziano, Morsi, ha condannato l’aggressione israeliana;
o Nabil al-Arabi, presidente della Lega Araba ha guidato una delegazione a Gaza per affermare la solidarietà con i palestinesi.
o Il Qatar è uno dei paesi che ha preso l’iniziativa nella crisi di Gaza.
o La nuova dinamica politica nella regione si tradurrà in un più chiaro appoggio a Gaza e alla causa palestinese? (Al-Jazeera, 19.11.2012)
– Hamas ha sempre saputo gestire entità e alleanze regionali conflittuali; tra i suoi leader ci sono politici pragmatici che amministrano Gaza secondo una linea più moderata di quella dei Fratelli musulmani di Egitto, e di Turchia e Qatar, e militanti su una linea più rigida appoggiati dall’Iran, favorevoli ad uno scontro armato con Israele.
– Il recente conflitto con Israele sembra che obblighi Hamas ad una scelta;
– l’attacco aereo israeliano è giunto proprio mentre Hamas stava cercando una base solida,
o due anni di rivolte arabe hanno rimescolato i suoi legami regionali:
o Hamas ha rotto con il presidente siriano Assad e iniziato a cercare protettori tra i nuovi governi islamisti più moderati al potere.
– Hamas è alle prese con una guerra di successione interna, per la sostituzione del leader Khaled Meshaal:
o si scontrano i duri favorevoli ad un’alleanza con l’Iran e i più moderati più vicini a Egitto e Qatar,
o e i leader Hamas di Gaza contro gli esuli del movimento, capi storici di Hamas.
– Alti generali israeliani hanno detto di aver progettato l’offensiva di Gaza pensando alla lotta intestina di Hamas.
– L’esito della lotta per la direzione del movimento influirà suI tipo di soluzione per la regione e per le relazioni israelo-palestinesi.
– Secondo gli analisti, se Hamas potrà vantare concessioni da Israele, soprattutto sul blocco di Gaza, prenderanno forza i moderati di Hamas.
o viceversa se continua il blocco aereo e navale, saranno rafforzati i falchi.
– Durante i recenti scontri armati Hamas ha acquisito legittimazione internazionale, sostenuta da Egitto, Turchia e Qatar, una svolta dopo anni di marginalizzazione per opera dei regimi arabi sostenuti dagli Usa; questo può favorirla farle guadagnare credenziali anche all’interno, rispetto ad al Fatah.
– I più stretti legami di Hamas con il blocco dei paesi sunniti rappresenta un problema per le relazioni con l’Iran sciita,
o suo maggior protettore negli ultimi anni, fornitore di armamenti e denaro ($120mn./anno),
o mentre i suoi leader erano in esilio nell’alleata Siria.
o Dopo che Meshaal se ne andato dalla Siria, per 4 mesi l’Iran non ha finanziato Hamas.
– Egitto, Turchia e Qatar hanno approfittato delle incrinature nelle relazioni con l’Iran e cercato di convincere Hamas a uscire dall’isolamento diplomatico.
o L’emiro del Qatar è stato il primo a visitare Gaza, impegnandosi con $400 mn. di finanziamenti per le infrastrutture.
o Il presidente egiziano, Morsi ha fatto passi per permettere il transito pedonale del confine con Gaza e sta pensando di aprire una zona di libero scambio lungo il confine.
– L’influenza dell’Iran incoraggiava i falchi di Hamas, le ambizioni della troika Egitto, Turchia e Qatar sembrano contagiare Meshaal.
– Il nuovo schieramento è però ancora in fieri … Hamas continua ad essere finanziato dall’Iran.
In Gaza, Hamas Faces Test of Strategy
Women on Sunday pass Gaza City houses that Palestinian witnesses said were damaged by Israeli airstrikes.
– The flare-up in Gaza has left the territory’s Hamas rulers at a crossroads: whether they should evolve into a purely political group or cling to their role as front-line warriors against Israel.
That tension isn’t new to the Islamist movement, but has gained a new relevance in the aftermath of the eight-day conflict that resulted in an uneasy cease-fire last week.
– Hamas has long been adept at managing dueling identities and conflicting regional alliances. The group’s leadership includes both pragmatic politicians who govern Gaza in the more moderate mold of their ideological brethren in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, and hard-line militants backed by Iran, who advocate a violent struggle against Israel.
– If the group had hoped to continue to straddle its dueling identities, the recent conflict with Israel appears to be forcing its hand.
– Israel’s aerial blitz on the Gaza Strip, which it said was in response to persistent rocket fire into Israel, came as Hamas was already struggling to find its footing amid momentous change.
– Two years of Arab uprisings have shuffled the group’s regional ties, as Hamas broke with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and began to seek patrons among the newly empowered, more moderate Islamist governments.
– Hamas is also in the midst of a succession struggle to see who will replace long time leader Khaled Mashaal, who has vowed to step aside in the coming months.
– That struggle pits hard-liners favoring an alliance with Iran versus relative moderates closer to Egypt and Qatar,
– as well as Hamas’s Gaza-based leadership against the movement’s exiles, who have historically led Hamas.
– Israel’s top generals said they plotted their offensive in Gaza with Hamas’s internal struggle in mind. "For this operation we want to force them to solve this dilemma: Do you want to be a sovereign of your territory or do you want to be a terror organization?" a senior Israeli general, a member of the joint chiefs of staff, asked last week.
– The movement’s direction could have repercussions for the region and Israeli-Palestinian peace hopes. If Hamas follows the path of its more moderate Arab neighbors, it would empower those seeking a negotiated settlement to a conflict that has destabilized the region for decades.
Much hinges on the success of last week’s truce.
– If Hamas can show it succeeded in extracting concessions from Israel, chiefly an easing of the blockade of Gaza, Hamas’s moderates are likely to gain clout, analysts say. But if the full sea and aerial blockade endures—which Israel says is needed to prevent arms from entering the territory—Hamas will appear to have abandoned the fight, empowering hard-liners.
"I think it’s a big opportunity," said Jane Kinninmont, a Middle East analyst at London-based Chatham House, a think tank. "But it depends on if they can get moving on the cease-fire to actually make progress for the people of Gaza."
There are early encouraging signs, say observers.
– Palestinians in Gaza say that Israeli soldiers have allowed farmers to till fields closer to the border fence and fisherman to trawl nets farther offshore. Israel denies any policy change.
– On Saturday, a leading Muslim cleric in Gaza issued a fatwa, or religious edict, declaring that it was every Muslim’s duty to honor the truce.
– A senior Israeli official said the early indications that Hamas intended to live up to its end of the bargain were encouraging, but said final judgment will rest on whether Hamas sustains the quiet for an extended period of time, not just a few days or weeks.
– Hamas’s international legitimacy gained a big boost during the flare-up. The leaders of Egypt, Turkey and Qatar all rallied publicly to its cause. That marked a change of fortunes for the group, after years of being ostracized by U.S.-backed Arab autocrats that kept Hamas marginalized on the global stage.
o That could bolster Hamas’s standing in the eyes of some Palestinians, who now see the group as better stewards of their interests in the international community than its rival Fatah in the West Bank.
– But Hamas’s closer ties with that bloc of Sunni Muslim nations poses risks to the movement’s relationship with Shiite-ruled Iran.
o In recent years, Iran has emerged as one of Hamas’s top patrons, funneling arms and some $120 million a year to the movement while its exiled leadership lived in Iran’s ally Syria, said Ahmed Youssef, a longtime adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
– After Mr. Mashaal left Syria early this year, Tehran withheld Hamas’s funding for about four months before resuming payments, said Mr. Youssef.
– Egypt, Turkey and Qatar saw the cracks in Hamas’s ties with Iran, and began a diplomatic effort to coax Hamas to come out of the diplomatic cold, even allowing Mr. Mashaal to split his time between their capitals in Cairo and Doha.
– Qatar’s emir became the first head of state to visit Hamas-controlled Gaza last month, pledging $400 million in infrastructure funding to highlight the Gulf emirate’s vision for Hamas’s future.
– Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s government has taken steps to allow foot traffic through his country’s border with Gaza and is making plans to open a free-trade zone along its border with the blockaded enclave.
– Just as Iran’s influence hardened Hamas’s militant resolve, the rising troika’s more moderate, peaceful regional ambitions seem to be rubbing off on Mr. Mashaal.
o Long seen as one of the movement’s most defiant hard-liners, Mr. Mashaal has recently emerged as a more dovish voice within Hamas.
– "Moving Hamas toward a political party rather than a militant group—that’s the direction Khaled Mashaal wants to move the movement," said Shadi Hamid, research director at the Brookings Doha Center.
– Mr. Youssef said Mr. Mashaal has become "more pragmatic, more moderate, more realistic," thanks to Egypt’s influence. "You grow up when you deal with politics for many years."
– Still, the new alignment remains a work in progress. The U.S. and Israel both consider Hamas a terrorist group, and Hamas has not wavered from its stated aim of destroying Israel.
The organization continues to receive funding from Iran. A senior Israeli general said that even as the past war was still raging, their intelligence showed Iran was actively trying to resupply Palestinian militants in Gaza.
The new Egyptian president is torn between the security establishment and the Muslim Brotherhood.
– The fact that Israel endured over 800 rocket attacks from Gaza in the past year before commencing yesterday’s military operation against Hamas suggests that Jerusalem hoped to avoid the current flare-up. Among other concerns, the Israeli government knew that another Gaza war would ignite the neighboring Egyptian "street," and since Egypt’s post-revolutionary government would have to be more responsive to popular sentiments, a downgrade in Israeli-Egyptian relations would be likely.
– The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood — Hamas’ Egyptian cousin — as Egypt’s new ruling party exacerbated those qualms, given the Brotherhood’s longtime opposition to the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty and refusal to acknowledge Israel’s rightful existence.
– It was therefore unsurprising that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a former Brotherhood leader, conceded to popular outrage in the wake of "Operation Pillar of Cloud" this week by recalling Egypt’s ambassador to Israel. Yet in the grand scheme of diplomatic gestures, this was, in fact, a relatively minor move. Indeed, former President Hosni Mubarak did exactly same thing in November 2000 when Egyptian demonstrations against Israel mounted during the second intifada.
– The real question, therefore, is what Morsi does next: will he stop at simply recalling his ambassador, or will use the fighting in Gaza to justify a more severe approach towards Israel?
– At the moment, Morsi is seemingly being pulled in two directions. On one hand, Egypt’s diplomatic and security establishments are urging calm. In this vein, Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr issued a bland statement calling on Israel to stop the fighting, and has taken the matter to the Arab League, which, in addition to being feckless, won’t discuss the fighting in Gaza until Saturday.
– Meanwhile, during the three days leading up to Wednesday’s conflagration, Egypt’s intelligence services had been working to prevent Israel-Hamas escalation, and they are now hoping that the current episode will pass speedily before Egyptian-Israeli relations are truly endangered. "Whatever happened happened," a high-ranking intelligence official told me yesterday when I asked whether a prolonged Gaza conflict would lead Morsi to intensify his response. "We must look to the future without any blood or escalation."
– Yet the Muslim Brotherhood is pulling Morsi in a very different direction. In the wake of Wednesday’s fighting, the Brotherhood called on Morsi to "sever diplomatic and trade relations with this usurper entity," so that the Egyptian government can "begin to be a role model for Arabs and Muslims who keep relations with this entity." The Brotherhood will also organize mass protests against Israel on Friday, and prominent Brotherhood leaders have insisted that post-revolutionary Egypt be more supportive of the Palestinians. "The Egyptian people revolted against injustice and will not accept the attack on Gaza," tweeted Brotherhood political party chairman Saad al-Katatny.
– During the first four-plus months of his presidency, Morsi has mostly embraced the more pragmatic approach endorsed by Egypt’s security and diplomatic professionals. This is partially due to Morsi’s stubborn refusal to deal with Israelis (not to mention his refusal to even utter the word "Israel" in official statements), which has forced him to delegate responsibility for his Israel policy to these bureaucratic institutions that are disinclined from confrontation with Israel. But it is also due to the Muslim Brotherhood’s belief that it must complete its project of Islamizing Egypt before it can pursue its regional ambitions. Indeed, as Mohamed Sudan, secretary for foreign relations of the Brotherhood’s political party, said earlier this week, Morsi is pursuing the right path towards Israel because he is "cancelling normalization with the Zionist entity gradually."
– Still, there are indications that Morsi may choose a more confrontational posture sooner rather than later. On Tuesday, the Brotherhood’s political party announced that its legal committee was working on a new draft law to unilaterally amend Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. Meanwhile, prominent Muslim Brothers have made hostile gestures towards Israel in recent months, including the Supreme Guide’s call for a "holy jihad" for Jerusalem, as well as Morsi’s answering "amen" to an imam who prayed for the destruction of Jews.
– Morsi has also demonstrated that he knows how to use a crisis to advance the Brotherhood’s political agenda. He responded to August terrorist attacks in Sinai by quickly firing the military chiefs who posed the greatest threat to the Brotherhood’s rule. Similarly, he may use the current flare-up to accelerate the Brotherhood’s pursuit of its anti-Israel ambitions. Whether or not Morsi uses the current fighting in Gaza to break off Israeli-Egyptian relations entirely now, it is clear that this remains the Muslim Brotherhood’s ultimate ambition.
– This is where Washington comes in. While the Obama administration cannot change the long-held aims of an insular, extreme movement like the Muslim Brotherhood, it must work to prevent the Brotherhood from pursuing those aims anytime soon. The administration can begin by telling Morsi very clearly that while he is free to disagree with the United States on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he cannot disagree on the importance of maintaining Egypt-Israeli relations, which have served to prevent war between two of the region’s strongest militaries for the past three-plus decades.
– Moreover, the administration should use economic aid, as well as American support for the $4.8 billion IMF loan that Egypt is pursuing, as leverage for ensuring that Morsi stays within well-defined red lines. After all, this aid is not charity – it is an investment in a relationship with an Egypt that is at peace with its neighbors. And an Egypt that uses another round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting as an excuse for breaking its international commitments, as the Brotherhood would like Morsi to do, is a very bad investment.
Copyright © 2012 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.