The world’s hardest makeover: Hamas

It was born as the Islamic Resistance Movement. It is more usually known by its Arabic acronym, Hamas. But talks taking place in Cairo could determine whether the Palestinian militants drop the middle word, abandon their 22-month war in Gaza against Israel and reinvent themselves as a political party.

On August 12th Khalil al-Hayya, the head of Hamas’s Gazan wing, arrived in Cairo for negotiations mediated by Egypt with Qatar and Turkey. On the table is a proposal to decommission its weapons, dissolve its armed brigades, free the remaining hostages and surrender power. In exchange, Israel would withdraw from Gaza, an interim Palestinian technocratic administration would be put in place supported by a un-endorsed international force and the rebuilding of the devastated territory would begin.

The external pressure on Mr Hayya to accept such a deal is intense. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is threatening to occupy the whole of Gaza. On August 12th Israeli forces began heavy strikes on Gaza city. Another offensive could destroy what remains of Hamas there and hasten the ethnic cleansing of the entire strip. The weakening of Iran has stripped the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, of its main foreign backer. Hamas’s last regional backers, Qatar and Turkey, have long favoured the group’s political arm. But they seem to be losing patience. They are understood to have said that if Mr Hayya refuses a deal, they might refuse to allow him and Hamas’s other leaders, who all left Doha a fortnight ago, to return.

Hamas faces even more pressure from those on whose behalf it claims to fight. The movement was born in Gaza. But the population that propelled it to victory in elections two decades ago has turned on the group. Few see value in a resistance that invites devastation upon them. While its fighters shelter in tunnels and its politicians negotiate over the width of a buffer zone, around a hundred Gazans were killed each day in July, nearly all by Israel. Threats of reprisals no longer mute criticism. “People in Gaza are furious with Hamas,” says a journalist from Gaza now in exile in Qatar. “They just want the nightmare to end.” A political activist in Gaza blames Hamas for the famine. “Hamas’s insistence on keeping power gives Israel the pretext to starve us,” he says. “Hamas should dissolve and disappear.” Dissent is even spilling through Hamas’s ranks. On WhatsApp groups, some members are calling for a laying down of arms before Gaza suffers even more.

Others in Hamas envision the group becoming a political party, in the manner of Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein or Israel’s own legal Islamist party, the United Arab List. Justice and Development, one suggests calling it. Reimagined, it could agree to the conditions set by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for participation in recently announced Palestinian elections. They include endorsing a two-state settlement, negotiations with Israel and Mr Abbas’s demand for a monopoly on Palestinian weapons. Given the disenchantment with Fatah, his own lacklustre movement, and the admiration Hamas’s grit still attracts outside Gaza, they might even win. “It’s been months since I’ve been this optimistic,” says an adviser to the movement exiled from Gaza.

And yet in Gaza city the Brigades fight on. Apart from cobbling shoes out of wood and rubber, it is one of the last job opportunities Gaza still offers. Israel’s attacks may have decimated Hamas’s ranks, but they still have weapons to harry their foe. Their presence spared Gaza even worse atrocities, they say, implausibly. “Without the Qassam Brigades we’d have had hundreds of Sabras and Shatilas,” argues the exiled son of a slain military commander, referring to the slaughter of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Israeli-occupied Beirut in 1982. Many still think they could regain power in Gaza. Asked to describe the Qassam Brigades’ mood, a Palestinian interlocutor with Hamas adopts an Irish lilt. “No surrender,” he says.

Meanwhile in exile, Hamas’s leaders reckon that Israel may be winning the battles but is losing the war. As in Algeria’s war of independence, their reading is that the resistance has turned the enemy’s weapons against itself, exhausting the Israelis and draining them of their international legitimacy and moral authority. Far from ending the conflict, they argue, a mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza would intensify it. Algeria won independence only after a million Algerians had lost their lives. “Be patient, Gaza,” says Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas.

How can Hamas be pushed to accept a deal? A commitment, if given, by a new Arab committee overseeing its implementation to integrate tens of thousands of Hamas’s civil servants into a new Palestinian administration and perhaps some fighters into the security forces might help. Hamas’s political leaders have expressed readiness to hand over their weapons to a new Palestinian administration in Gaza, once Israel fully withdraws. “The Brigades will accept the movement’s decision,” says a strategist close to Hamas in Istanbul.

But many obstacles remain. America and Israel must also accept the terms, and neither has come to Cairo. Despite the rising costs for Israel, Mr Netanyahu still prefers military to diplomatic endgames. The details of Hamas’s disarmament, any international force and an interim technocratic Palestinian government have yet to be determined, says an Egyptian observer. And Hamas’s “pragmatism” has only ever gone so far. In 1991, after the end of the first Palestinian intifada (uprising), and the start of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks, one of Hamas’s founders declared mission accomplished. He proposed disbanding Hamas’s armed wing and joining the negotiations. How can we forgo our brand recognition, retorted his brothers? Too many within Hamas may still feel the same. ■