Thread by @MouinRabbani

THREAD: My comments to the Annual Palestine Forum in Doha earlier today: I’ve been asked to speak on the topic of “Hamas in the Aftermath of the War on Gaza”. It’s a topic that makes a number of assumptions: that this war will have a defined ending and aftermath;

that there will still be a Gaza Strip; and that the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, will continue to exist within it.

To take the first of these assumptions, already in October 2023 Nathan Brown, writing for the Carnegie Middle East Center, made the argument that this war is unlikely to end in the manner that armed conflicts between states usually end,

with either a formal agreement to end hostilities or the surrender of one party to the other. I would also add that it is unlikely to end in the manner that previous Israeli assaults on the Gaza Strip have ended,

with an indefinite ceasefire mediated by third parties, in this case Qatar and Egypt.

I think Israel’s model for its current campaign is Operation Defensive Shield, which it conducted in the West Bank in 2002 at the height of the Al-Aqsa Intifada: namely, to break the back of Palestinian governance and of Palestinian armed movements,

and then conduct a war of attrition, in coordination with a new and pliant Palestinian leadership, to further fragment the Palestinian resistance and reduce it to a nuisance that is constantly on the defensive rather than a capable threat.

The problem for Israel is that it is now fighting its longest war since 1949, and a repetition of Defensive Shield appears increasingly unattainable. While the Israeli military remains an effective and efficient killing machine,

and is second to none when it comes to slaughtering defenceless civilians with air power and long-range artillery, it has demonstrated itself to be a mediocre fighting force, particularly in ground operations and close quarter combat.

In such circumstances it is less able to deploy its overwhelming advantage in firepower and technology.

Until recently it had been my view that Israel remains capable of achieving a clear outcome, but was unprepared to pay the price in Israeli military casualties, in economic losses, and in regional – and potentially international – repercussions.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that for this Israeli military, victory is unattainable, full stop. The best it can hope for is a reality akin to that in southern Lebanon during the 1990s, or the six northern counties of Ireland under British rule.

Occupation without control, and attrition. And as in Ireland, attrition will not be limited to the territory in question. Insurgency will continue in the West Bank, where Israel has despite a years-long campaign failed to pacify much weaker and fragmented adversaries.

Rebellion may also once again encompass Israel. The possibility that Palestine’s regional allies will continue their armed campaigns until Israel ends its aggression should also not be discounted.

Will the above scenario cause Israel to cut its losses, accept an indefinite ceasefire, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and focus on the retrieval of its captives? Or will it instead throw good money after bad and continue its campaign?

It’s a difficult question. I suspect that for an army that collapsed like a house of cards on 7 October, that attaches primary importance to its powers of deterrence, and that is desperate to show its Western sponsors that it remains a valuable instrument of their interests,

accepting failure will not come easily. Indeed, I believe it is the Israeli security establishment, more than Netanyahu, that is desperate to continue this war in the hope of achieving something that can be presented as victory.

This brings us to the second assumption, that the Gaza Strip will survive Israel’s genocidal campaign. Compared to 6 October, the Gaza Strip already looks different from space. Ethnic cleansing, what Zionism calls Transfer, remains a strategic objective.

But with the initial failure to expel the Palestinian population wholesale, the emphasis has shifted to making the Gaza Strip unfit for human habitation, and, increasingly, unsafe for human life as well.

The final offensive Israel and its Western sponsors are currently waging against UNRWA is not just revenge and retaliation for South Africa’s successful application to the International Court of Justice.

It is also a continuation of their systematic dismantling of the civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.

While it is true that today’s Arab governments live in constant terror of American disapproval, and that many of them seek to curry favor with Washington by improving relations with Israel, they have thus far resisted initiatives to expel the Palestinians to the Sinai desert.

I can’t say with confidence that they, and particularly the Egyptian government of Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, which is so faithfully collaborating with the medieval siege on the Gaza Strip, and which has given Israel sovereign privileges over the Egyptian-Palestinian border,

will maintain this opposition. But it does appear increasingly unlikely that Rafah will be opened in only one direction.

This brings us to the future of Hamas, both within the Gaza Strip and as a movement. Since 7 October I’ve consistently maintained that Hamas’s primary motivation in launching its offensive into southern Israel was to irrevocably shatter the status quo.

Some call it Operation Prison Break. The former US diplomat Chas Freeman has likened October 7th to the 1968 Tet Offensive, launched by Vietnamese forces to demolish US illusions about Washington’s ability to control the fate of Vietnam and its people.

But a status quo that had become so intolerable that Hamas felt compelled to shatter it also poses, as we have seen, very significant challenges.

Within the Palestinian arena, the Palestinian Authority has taken the position of a silent and uninterested spectator, jumping to life only when its own role in the future of the Gaza Strip is raised, or when Israel refuses to transfer Palestinian tax receipts to Ramallah.

Had Mahmoud Abbas opposed Israel’s genocide against his own people with the same passion and energy deployed to retrieve PA funds from Israel, many more Palestinians might today still be alive.

As it stands, Abu Mazin’s willingness to engage with Western proposals to install him as military governor of Gaza has intensified efforts to depose Hamas.

At the regional level I don’t take claims that Hamas sought to sabotage an imminent US-Saudi-Israeli deal particularly seriously, primarily because no such deal was imminent. If I’m wrong and it was,

a mountain of Palestinian corpses would have had as much impact as did the 1982 Siege of Beirut and Sabra-Shatilla massacres on Egypt’s separate peace with Israel.

As for the failure of the formal Arab order to lift a finger in support of the Palestinians, this should disappoint only those who believe this order has been reconstructed and once again exists.

More problematic, but not entirely unexpected, is the limited mobilization of Arab public opinion. Does this reflect the fear of repression and effectiveness of regional police states? A tendency to consider engagement on social media a legitimate form of political activism?

Or perhaps also the absence of Palestinian unity and the relationship between the domestic schism and regional polarization?

Tufan Al-Aqsa has also failed to unleash a full-scale regional offensive against Israel by the Axis of Resistance. For this, Hamas bears the primary responsibility. For reasons that may be understandable, Hamas did not properly coordinate with its coalition partners.

And for equally understandable reasons, its coalition partners are acting according to their own agendas. October 7th 2023 was not a joint operation like 6 October 1973.

Had Syria acted unilaterally 51 years ago, would we be as enraged by Sadat’s unilateral acceptance of a ceasefire behind Assad’s back?

At the international level Hamas has fully succeeded in once again placing the Question of Palestine at the very center of the global agenda.

South Africa’s genocide case before the International Court of Justice, and mass demonstrations throughout the world, bear ample testimony to this. But this observation comes with two caveats:

First, the West’s strategic neglect of Palestine in recent years quickly transformed into unqualified support for Israel and complicity in genocide. Elected governments in particular have so far have proven immune to pressure from their constituents.

At the same time, if leaders like Biden and Starmer lose rather than gain votes for siding with Israel this will prove a significant turning point.

The traditional approach, that Palestinians can safely be dismissed as irrelevant human scum by opportunist politicians, will be no more.

Second, the US and EU have made clear that there can be no further engagement with Hamas, and that they fully share Israel’s goal of removing it from power.

Yet the Axis of Genocide faces challenges of its own: unless Hamas is militarily defeated, it cannot be removed from power. And if it is not removed from power, it cannot be replaced.

As mentioned previously the situation is sufficiently complex that it is not one in which either Israel or the Palestinians will initially come out clearly on top.

But there is much that the Palestinians, both Hamas and others, can do to maximise their advantage. Most importantly, Hamas will need to resist the temptation to translate its vastly enhanced popularity and credibility, particularly outside the Gaza Strip,

into a campaign for hegemony over the national movement. My sense is that many of its leaders understand this.

I have for many years been of the firm opinion that no attempt to resolve the multi-dimensional Palestinian crisis can succeed unless and until Abbas departs or is removed from the scene.

But serious discussions about the integration of Hamas and PIJ into the PLO, about a new national program, and about the rejuvenation of the national movement can already begin yesterday, and may in fact accelerate the process of leadership renewal.

And by leadership renewal I do not mean appointment of a new leader to replace the old, but rather a new leadership model that responds to the existential challenges confronting the Palestinian people.

More locally, if Palestinians present a united front about Gaza governance – about Palestinian governance – they will immeasurably strengthen their hand against those foreign powers who presume to audition, select and appoint Palestinian leadership, and restrict its authority.

And against efforts to once again enclose Palestinians within the Oslo paradigm. If the diverse Palestinian leaderships reach agreement on a new leadership model, and negotiate a formula for power-sharing or at least proper consultation and collective decision-making,

it doesn’t really matter who forms the government, because it will be approved by and represent all concerned.

While governance, reconstruction, public services, and the like are important, they are also only part of the agenda. The strategic objective remains self-determination, in one form or another. And so long as Oslo reigns, there can be no self-determination.

In conclusion I would argue that the main challenges facing Hamas in the months ahead are not Israel or its Western sponsors, but rather the negotiation of a new Palestinian political system in which it is a full partner. END