Gaza
flares as Qatar, Egypt take peace
reins By Victor Kotsev
After several days of violence on the
Gaza-Israel border saw at least seven Palestinian
militants dead and over a dozen wounded on both
sides, a tense calm started to set in on Wednesday
afternoon and Thursday. If the Egyptian-mediated
truce continues to hold, this will attest, among
other things, both to the increased regional
influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Gulf
Arab allies and to Hamas's desire to shore up its
diplomatic and political achievements of the past
week.
A very public visit by the Emir of
Qatar, hailed by the Palestinians as the breaking
of "the political and economic blockade of the
Gaza Strip," is one such victory for the dominant
Gaza militant movement. A municipal election in
the West Bank where its rival, the Palestinian
Authority, took a beating, presented Hamas
(which did not
participate) with another.
It is not
completely clear what set off the current round of
violence - gun battles, rocket and air strikes
erupted on Monday, both sides pointing a finger at
the other - but in contrast to previous episodes,
Hamas bore the brunt of both the attacks and the
casualties. Perhaps the militants did not want to
be outdone by smaller terror groups such as
Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance
Committees, acting provocatively on Iranian
orders, and perhaps Israel also had some interest
to embarrass further the Gaza rulers. In any case,
the wider context of the clash, which could evolve
into a redrawing of the Palestinian political map,
cannot be ignored.
The visit of Qatar's
emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani to the
coastal enclave Tuesday was the first of its kind
since the brief Palestinian civil war in 2007
which brought Hamas to power there (in fact, since
at least 1999). It bestowed a measure of
international recognition to Hamas and was widely
perceived as a slap in the faces of both Israel
and the Palestinian Authority. "Such visits give
Hamas the impression that the visitors recognize
their rule and that would reinforce the split and
not help the reconciliation," an aide to
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the
Associated Press.
Al-Thani entered Gaza
from Egypt, underscoring the close cooperation
between his kingdom and Egypt's ruling Muslim
Brotherhood, whose offshoot is Hamas. He brought
with him a check for over US$400 million, a part
of which is allocated for a massive building
project nicknamed "Hamad City." It bears noting
the execution of the project will require that
Egypt actively participate in the transfer of
building materials into the strip, a move that
will further erode the Israeli blockade and will
increase Gaza's dependence on Egypt.
This
in turn may increase the separation between the
strip and the West Bank, though the emir could yet
use his newly gained influence to try to broker a
reconciliation agreement between the main
Palestinian factions. His previous such attempt
was torpedoed in November 2011 by the Gaza
leadership of Hamas. This time around, not only
would Hamas be much more cooperative - rumor has
it that it is hoping to move its headquarters to
Doha, and al-Thani's visit may well have been an
occasion to advance such plans - but the
Palestinian authority may be desperate to accept
an extended hand. Among recent setbacks it
suffered was Saturday's municipal election,
labeled by the Palestinian news agency Ma'an a
"failure". [1]
Less publicly, his visit
was also a coup against Iran's influence in the
area, which would explain why Tehran may have had
an interest in the flare-up. As analyst David
Roberts put it in an article in Foreign Policy
Magazine,
[W]hile Israel and the Palestinian
Authority may view Qatar's embrace of Hamas with
chagrin, it is Iran that is the central loser in
this drama … When Tehran stopped sending money
to Hamas after the group failed to publicly
support Iran's embattled ally in Syria, Qatar
saw an opportunity to split the Palestinian
group from its long-time sponsor. While its $400
million donation is earmarked for humanitarian
development, not only is such support fungible,
but there are doubtless other financial
arrangements being made between Qatar and Hamas
on this trip - further strengthening the ties
between the Palestinian Islamist movement and
Doha. [2]
This circumstance further
complicates Israel's role in the crisis. The
Jewish State is in the middle of an election
campaign, and members of the opposition accused
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Defense Minister Ehud Barak of intentionally
escalating the hostilities. On the other hand, as
Israeli analyst Herb Keinon noted, "[Netanyahu]
said he brought security, but the events of the
past few days seem to belie that. He needs quiet
to run on a campaign ticket of having brought
quiet." [3]
The blow to the Israeli
blockade on Gaza which the Emir of Qatar delivered
may well have persuaded the Israeli leaders that
they needed to convey a tough message. It appears,
however, that they acted with considerable
restraint in the strip, even as over 100 missiles
rained on southern Israel. All of the Palestinian
casualties in the exchange were militants.
On the other hand, Israel is widely
believed to have carried out a bombing raid in
Sudan on Tuesday, destroying a missile factory
allegedly operated by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps. It is quite possible that the
factory's output was being smuggled into Gaza (the
Sudanese information minister declined to answer a
Reuters question about this [3]), which would mean
that the operation was an indirect blow to both
Iran and its proxies in the strip. In this way -
and especially since organizations like Islamic
Jihad are currently much more likely to receive
such deliveries than Hamas - the raid may have
quietly aided Qatar's mission.
The
million-dollar question is whether any of these
developments would bring closer a strike on the
Iranian nuclear facilities. A prominent Israeli
analyst called the operation in Sudan a "live-fire
practice run" for the Islamic Republic, while the
Qatari initiative to pry Hamas further out of
Tehran's orbit can be interpreted in the same
vein. However, for now this is a highly
speculative interpretation. What seems much more
certain is that major political developments on a
more local level are underway.
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