Political Hardball Within Hamas: Hardline Militants Calling Shots in Gaza
By Matthew Levitt
Despite its myopic focus on promoting violent conflict rather than peaceful negotiations with Israel, Hamas is by no means a monolithic movement. Divisions within the Hamas leadership were evident, for instance, when the recent six-month ceasefire came to a close and varying Hamas leaders issued conflicting statements that both terminated the ceasefire and called for its extension. With Israeli forces currently deployed in Gaza targeting Hamas's military and political leadership, untangling the fissures within the organization is critically important to understanding the group's decisionmaking process.
With its electoral victory in January 2006, and even more so after it defeated Fatah and forcibly took over Gaza in June 2007, the external leadership of Hamas based in Damascus lost some control to the group's Gaza leaders. While the Damascus leadership remained dominant, in large part because it still controlled the organization's purse strings and oversaw relationships with Hizballah, Iran, and other foreign entities, Hamas leaders in Gaza were making the day-to-day decisions. Then, in August 2008, Hamas hardliners dominated the secret ballot election for Gaza's Shura council. Less-extreme Hamas leaders like reportedly did not even bother to run when they saw the electoral slate dominated by young Hamas members affiliated with the Qassam Brigades. The election reportedly brought hardline Hamas military officials into the movement's Gaza political bureau, and chief among them was Ahmed Jabari, Hamas's "chief of staff," who oversaw the group's military wing.
The emergence of Gaza's hardline Hamas leadership, one that is closely affiliated with the movement's military wing, provides critical background to understanding recent events. It provides context not only for Hamas's decision to terminate the ceasefire and resume rocket attacks against Israeli civilian communities, but also for the Israeli decision to strike back hard -- first from the air and then on the ground -- at the group's military and political infrastructure in Gaza. It also clearly indicates that as the international community attempts to craft an enforceable ceasefire -- one that presumably protects Israeli civilians against indiscriminate Hamas rocket attacks -- a key prerequisite for success will be to weaken the militant Hamas leadership currently calling the shots in Gaza.
The full article is available here.