After Gaza

[barb162]

21 - 27 June 2007
After Gaza

What happens now? Samir Ghattas* examines likely scenarios in Gaza and the West Bank

Barely a month after the commemoration of the 59th anniversary of the Nakba -- the creation of Israel, the defeat of the Arabs and the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians -- and within a week of the commemoration of the defeat of 1967 came a new catastrophe for the Palestinians and Arabs. Its particular horror is that it was inflicted by Palestinians against Palestinians. On 14 June, following one of the bloodiest weeks in the occupied territories and one of the most nightmarish weeks in Palestinian history, Hamas and its Qassam militia celebrated their victory in the "Battle of Gaza".


Some maintain that Hamas's military coup in Gaza was the inevitable result of the protracted power struggle between Fatah and Hamas, with Hamas succeeding in settling this struggle definitively in its favour by securing absolute control over power in Gaza. Others hold that what transpired in Gaza was not so much the final phase of a power struggle but rather a chapter in a protracted conflict over identity: the identity of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and, by extension, Palestinian society. Since its founding in 1965, the Palestinian nationalist movement had a predominantly secularist, democratic nationalist identity. Hamas, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, never hid its desire to Islamicise this identity. Essentially, therefore, the Hamas victory effectively crowned the growing influence of the most fundamentalist and extremist segment in Hamas, which, according to this analysis, will now see it as its mission to imprint its own radical Islamist identity on the rest of Palestinian society, even if this necessitates rivers of blood.

There might be something to this point of view. Sheikh Nazar Rayan, the Hamas leader in the largest refugee camp in Gaza, proclaimed in no uncertain terms that the purpose of Hamas's battle was to uproot secularism in Gaza. As though to confirm this, in their jubilation over their victory, Hamas forces took down the Palestinian flags from all PA offices and replaced it with their green banner. Then, in the spirit of triumphant conquerors, they stormed every building associated with the PA, including the homes of Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad, and plundered their contents. Even the Statue of the Unknown Soldier that stood in front of the Legislative Assembly building was not spared. This heretic idol, and symbol of accursed democracy, was toppled and dragged through the streets of Gaza, one of many rites and rituals intended to signify the humiliation of foes and the birth of "Hamastan" -- the cornerstone laid by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas-Gaza branch, for the revival of the Islamic caliphate.

Of course there are other readings of events in Gaza, varying in the degree of their accuracy and differing in what they choose to stress or underplay. Yet, as diverse as these may be, no one disagrees that the Battle of Gaza will have extremely grave repercussions for the Palestinian cause and that these repercussions will reverberate across the Middle East. It is essential, therefore, to keep any analysis as objective and thorough as possible so that we can produce realistic forecasts of the possible developments and scenarios that lay in store for the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/850/re4.htm