[Salon] 8 Palestinian factions meet to shape Gaza’s future – including Hamas

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

By Gerry Shih, Claire Parker and Hazem Balousha

with Sammy Westfall(via The Washington Post)

8 Palestinian factions meet to shape Gaza’s future – including Hamas

Members of Hamas’s military wing last week at a site where a search for hostages' bodies is being conducted in Gaza. (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)

Palestinian political factions are holding closed-door discussions that could see Hamas play a role in shaping a postwar administration in Gaza, despite Israel’s vow to eliminate the militant group’s political influence in the enclave and a decades-old feud between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

The eight Palestinian factions and armed groups involved in the discussions — including most notably the Fatah party, which leads the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank, and Hamas — are working to reach a consensus over key elements of an interim administration as early as this week, when they meet again in Cairo, according to Palestinian and other Arab officials and individuals involved in the talks.

In particular, the parties are wrestling over who should head a proposed technocratic committee to run Gaza and whether this de facto cabinet should operate under the aegis of the Palestinian Authority, if the current ceasefire holds.

A pivotal question is whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — or President Donald Trump, whose peace plan calls for a new administration — would object to a Gazan government born out of talks between Hamas and Fatah.

Given the fierce rivalry between Fatah and Hamas ever since the birth of Hamas in 1987, observers of Palestinian politics say that even a limited agreement between the two groups would amount to a historic development. If reconciled, they could form the basis for a future Palestinian state combining the West Bank and Gaza.

Two years after Israel launched a devastating war to eradicate Hamas, and three weeks after the ceasefire was announced, the inter-Palestinian talks reflect a simple truth: Hamas remains an armed and influential presence in the Gaza Strip. To avoid a protracted postwar insurgency, Hamas must be included in any political settlement, say Palestinian political factions and mediators from Arab countries.

“The last thing you want is for an ideological movement like Hamas to be completely excluded and forced underground, which could lead to an even more radical manifestation,” said Dimitri Diliani, a spokesman for the Fatah Reformist Democratic faction led by the Gazan politician Mohammed Dahlan. “It is important that they feel involved in the political process, while at the same time having no direct practical role in governance itself.”

The Palestinian administrative body, if formed, could work alongside or potentially supplant the international “Board of Peace” envisioned in Trump’s plan and handle policing inside Gaza instead of foreign troops now being considered for that role, said Palestinian and Arab officials and other individuals involved in the talks. Separate discussions are being held over the possible composition of a multinational stabilization force.

The Palestinian parties have been meeting at the behest of Egypt. In an interview, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the aim is to set up an administrative committee consisting entirely of technocrats from Gaza.

“The main objective is to empower the Palestinians, including the Palestinian Authority, to be able to run Gaza as an integral part of the West Bank and as a step for the realization of the Palestinian state,” Abdelatty said. He said the committee members “will be entrusted with running the daily life of the Palestinians, and the policemen will be entrusted with the issue of law enforcement and the security of Gaza.”

The exact mandate of the international Board of Peace, including its relationship with the Palestinian committee, should be decided by the U.N. Security Council, Abdelatty said. But Egypt and Palestinian factions are adamant that civilian affairs in Gaza should be managed by Palestinians.

Young Palestinians wear headbands of the Fatah youth movement at a funeral in September for a 20-year-old killed in the West Bank. (Heidi Levine/For The Washington Post)

Who gets to govern?

This spring, even as war in Gaza was still raging, Egyptian officials solicited from Hamas and Fatah the names of about 40 nonpartisan technocrats of Gazan origin. That formed the pool of candidates currently being considered for the committee.

In television interviews late last month, Hamas officials, including top political leader Khalil al Hayya, said the group had proposed names but gave other parties, including Egypt, the right to veto any candidate. Hamas was ready to “hand over the reins” to the new Gaza committee and relinquish its weapons to a Palestinian government, Hayya told Al Jazeera.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has dispatched his vice president, Hussein al-Sheikh, and intelligence chief, Majed Faraj, for bilateral discussions with Hayya and others. Although Fatah and Hamas have not clashed over specific candidates, the various Palestinian factions are jockeying over whether the committee will report to the Palestinian Authority and whether the chair of the committee will be a minister from the authority, according to three officials from Fatah and Hamas who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The Palestinian Authority has suggested that Maged Abu Ramadan, the Palestinian health minister in the West Bank, lead the Gazan administration under the authority’s auspices, said two people close to the Fatah leadership. But that proposal has run into objections on several fronts because of concerns about the authority.

Abdulfattah Dola, a Fatah spokesman, said the committee must officially be subordinate to the Palestinian Authority. “We are looking for consecrating the principle of one authority and one [point of] reference within the institutions of the State of Palestine,” Dola said.

Ghaith al-Omari, an expert on Palestinian affairs at the Washington Institute, said Fatah may be afraid of losing its grip on Palestinian politics and feel threatened by Hamas’s enduring popularity and influence. “Hamas is emerging with the momentum with the end of the war,” Omari said. Fatah “have a fear that they will be forced into a deal that will be more favorable to Hamas.”

Fears of a resurgent Hamas

In 2007, the two groups went to war in the streets for control of Gaza, with Hamas prevailing. In the ensuing years, the two sides held several rounds of talks about jointly managing the Strip or even reconciliation. Those efforts, often sponsored by Egypt, never led to a real détente.

As Gaza’s economy deteriorated during the 2010s under an Israeli blockade, officials in the cash-strapped Hamas government headed by Khaled Meshal sought to reconcile with the Palestinian Authority and hand over certain administrative functions. Meshal asked the authority to pay civil servant salaries, but the West Bank-based government balked at some of the requests.

Today, the question of how salaries in Gaza will be paid is again a pressing issue in the talks, said a Palestinian individual who is close to Fatah leadership. The two groups are considering allowing most Hamas employees to stay in their jobs but be overseen by officials from the Palestinian Authority, the individual said.

For Israel, nearly every aspect of the inter-Palestinian talks — from the involvement of Hamas in the Gaza committee’s formation to the discussions over Hamas-affiliated bureaucrats and security forces potentially staying in place — is unpalatable.

“The fear for Israel is that Hamas will open the gates of Gaza and say to the PA, ‘You’re the boss here. Just bring money to Gaza and you can declare yourself the minister of agriculture or education. Just don’t touch weapons, and we’ll be the dominant player,” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence analyst of Palestinian affairs.

With their shared anxiety over a resurgent Hamas, Netanyahu may actually find an ally in Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, said Khaled Okasha, an Egyptian consultant who has advised Palestinian and Egyptian delegations in ceasefire negotiations. The authority “fears there is a U.S.-Hamas agreement behind the scenes” to the effect that Hamas may be able to play some role in Gaza in the future, Okasha said. “The Palestinian Authority wants more than Israel that Hamas is totally removed from Gaza.”

Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said it’s not clear how the Trump administration will respond to the Gaza committee once it is assembled by Egypt. Washington will ultimately have to give a “thumbs-up or thumbs-down” to a Gazan government that may bear the imprimatur, however subtle, of Hamas, he said.

“We might see a technocratic committee that does not have nominal, card-carrying Hamas members but has people who will not work against Hamas’s interests,” Shapiro said. “There is a risk that the end state that emerges will be what we wanted to avoid and something akin to the end of previous Israel-Hamas wars: Hamas is battered and bruised but hanging on to power, preparing for the next round.”

Shih reported from Jerusalem, Parker from Cairo and Balousha from Hamilton, Canada. Ari Flanzraich contributed to this report.