Hamas refashions its militancy

The Palestinian group has not claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel since taking over Gaza in June.

from the August 22, 2007 edition

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But since June, Hamas has defied expectations by restoring a measure of law and order to the streets of Gaza for the first time in years – an achievement that has helped boost its approval rating among Palestinians from 18 percent in July to 23 percent this month, according to the Ramallah survey group Near East Consulting.

Any escalation of violence could complicate Hamas's effort to convince the international community that it should be accepted as an interlocutor on behalf of the Palestinians.

"No political process can take place without involving the party which represents a major force in Palestinian society," wrote Ahmed Yousef, the political adviser to former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, in an op-ed in the daily newspaper Al-Quds. "The way that the international community deals with Hamas decides the way the Islamists deal with the West, either in the shape of coexistence in the shape of confrontation."

Now that Hamas is in power, experts say, the Islamists want to strike a contrast with rivals from Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, which is perceived by many Palestinians as trading the cause of the struggle against Israel for government jobs. "They are becoming politically smarter," says Meir Javedanfar, a Tel Aviv-based Middle East analyst. [Editor's note: The original version misidentified Meir Javedanfar. He is a Tel Aviv-based Middle East analyst.]

"[Hamas is] using the armed struggle as a means to an end. They are using it as a tool to show the Palestinian people that, unlike other political parties in power, they don't change their stripes so easily. At the same time, they're not letting the armed struggle take over the main goal of the organization, which is providing security for their people and providing social and economic services."

That has been a tall order. With major commercial crossings to Israel shut for two months, thousands of Palestinians in the private sector have found themselves without work. In recent days, electricity to tens of thousands of Gazans has been interrupted, since the European Union held up payment for the fuel for power generators in Gaza. The power outage has forced many Gazans to resort to electric generators.

"They have to show that they are able to succeed, otherwise people will say, 'Why did they take over Gaza if they don't have the ability to manage?' " said Omar Shaban, a Gaza-based political analyst. "Hamas can launch 80 rockets in two hours. But they are being intelligent. They have other challenges."

Hamas is believed to be waiting for an opportunity to renew talks on a new compromise with Fatah. Stabilizing the Gaza Strip would put Hamas in a strong position in those negotiations, analysts say.

The prevailing view of Hamas's long-term strategy among Israeli officials and analysts is a bit a more pessimistic. Many say that in addition to stabilizing Gaza, Hamas also is looking to build up its military capabilities in the hopes it can one day repeat the Lebanese Shiite militia Hizbullah's battlefield draw against the Israeli army in last summer's Lebanon war – a result that would burnish its reputation in the Arab world.

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