HAMAS v. EMPIRE: SPIN OFFS FOR A NEW INTIFADHA?

SECOND DRAFT

HAMAS v. EMPIRE: SPIN OFFS FOR A NEW INTIFADHA?

How does a group that had adopted nationalist grassroots-based unconventional warfare think? Practically speaking, how will Hamas respond to its financial suffocation by Israel and the Bush Administration? Will the Saudis break the financial siege? Will Russia? Will Iran?


THE DILEMMA

Following its electoral victory, having organized as a result of nearly four decades of Israeli occupation, Hamas has found itself in a quandary:

If it refuses to:

(1) recognize Israel’s right to exist, and
(2) renounce nationalist grassroots-based unconventional warfare,

Israel would choke it financially, as would the United States and (possibly but not fully) America’s Arab dependencies and protectorates.


HAMAS CANNOT FAIL

Hamas cannot afford to fail. It has promised a government free of corruption in a region where corruption is the norm, foremost among the leaders of empire’s dependencies and protectorates. Some world recognition of it is of little help. Money needs to flow in soon; otherwise Hamas will fail. Unless...


SOME BACKGROUND ON PLAYERS AND THEIR LEANINGS

Russia called on Hamas to send a delegation to Moscow; Turkey hosted one. The Turks gloated, leaking news that Khaled Mishaal had agreed to delay visiting Tehran. (They gloated too soon.) The Turks, concerned about their (fading) special relationship to Israel, pointed out that Mishaal in Ankara mentioned the word “peace;” he couldn’t have been referring to peace with Portugal, could he, they added.

The Arab League 's foreign ministers are expected to meet soon and activate the 2002 Arab summit commitment to send the Palestinian Authority (PA) $50 million per month. But Hamas cannot place its eggs in this one basket. The foreign ministers’ bosses--Kings, Princes, and Presidents--had in 2002 committed themselves to sending the PA $600 million per year. Of this they’ve sent $100 million.

And Mishaal is heading to Tehran, anyway. The Imperial mandarin-in-chief, Dr. Rice, had warned Tehran not to lend financial assistance to a Hamas government. Why wouldn't Tehran? It has little to lose, at this stage, as it already had opted to defy empire’s wishes. Too, It has opted to integrate away from the West. It will soon be signing a $100 billion energy agreement with China. Not to mention that it had integrated scientifically with Russia, the country which is building the Bushehr nuclear power plant. In short, Iran has chosen the air it wants to breathe, and it’s not that of the West.

That the Iranians like the West means in good part that they like to emigrate to where the business horizons are wider. Population growth in the Middle East, and in Iran, is such that the West (especially Europe) would need to create a hundred million jobs to keep the region quiet. On or about February 9, 2006, the President of the World Economic Forum, professor Klaus Schwab, warned of the coming “time bomb” of unemployment. He estimated that the Arab region will need 100 million jobs in the coming ten years.

Why should Iran heed Dr. Rice’s orders? Or cave in to the Europeans who are leaning hard on it. Iran can, can it not, live without the Europeans. These vacation-and-pension-minded tribes of Europe don’t have the troops to constitute a credible threat to the Islamic Republic. France is leaning hard on Iran; but French policy is an act. It’s motivated (as is the British) by the lure of promised Saudi defense contracts. Saudi Arabia seems to be putting together a coalition of Western countries that would balance nuclear Iran. But that really should have little practical impact on the balance of power in the region. In addition, sanctions (without the commitment of millions of troops for decades to come) should have little effect on the Islamic Republic. Iran is integrating fast (economically and scientifically) into another world, that of China and Russia.


WHAT WILL SAUDI ARABIA DO?

Saudi Arabia had made supportive statements of the democratic process that landed Hamas in government, and had lent the PA a financial hand before the elections. But will the Kingdom provide financial assistance to a Hamas government? Would the Kingdom heed Dr. Rice’s instructions to it not to assist a Hamas rule? The fact that France had sided with the Kingdom and recognized Hamas’s win says that the Kingdom is thinking seriously about disobeying empire and lending a financial hand (probably through the Arab League)to a Hamas-led government. Why would Saudi Arabia ignore empire’s instructions?

A priori, Let us not forget that Hamas is one and the same as the Muslim Brothers. And no un-dismantled-yet-by-empire Arab government likes the Brothers. But a lesson had been learned from the Iraq invasion: That empire can be mediocre in its policies and therefore satellites, protectorates, and dependencies should not always heed its orders. Especially not when a protectorate such as the Kingdom is swimming in oil income, oil capacity and supply to the world economy are at their limits, and the Bush Administration is becoming increasingly insignificant after its abject failure in Iraq.

More importantly: Suppose fighting erupts in Israel-Palestine, and Arab children die in Israeli bombings. These deaths would be shown on al-Jazeerah, and could awaken the Saudi public from its material wealth-induced-coma. Couldn’t it? And if the Saudi public does awaken from its wealth-induced stupor, could its government afford to ignore its outrage and not lend financial support to the Palestinian government--Hamas-led? I doubt it could.



WHAT ARE HAMAS’S STRATEGISTS THINKING?

If Hamas recognizes Israel’s right to exist and gives up its weapons, what’s to assure it that Israel would withdraw to pre-1967 borders? Hamas sees its win as a historic opportunity to lead, something which may not happen again for a good while. After all, the cargo-getter among the Palestinians is not Hamas. It is Fateh. And Hamas knows it. The next time around, Hamas fears, empire and its Israeli dependency would make sure that cargo flowed generously to the Palestinian public before an election.

Hamas has expressed its willingness to commit to a long-term truce to assuage Israel’s concerns. But that’s not enough for the US and Israel. Both are afraid a Hamas government would in fact succeed and be corruption-free, all while not having laid down its arms.

The problem is compounded by the fact that Dr. Rice is visiting the Gulf to officiate confrontation with Iran. (Absurd, really.) And Hamas has a close rapport with the Islamic Republic. Should Hamas read into Rice’s visit a definite dead end for its attempts to obtain recognition (and money)from empire and its satellites?


Here’s a likely course that Hamas could take:

1. Hamas will not declare its acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. That’s too precious a card to play. Not now, not until Israel proves serious about pulling out of all post-1967 territory, pays for any water it is taking, and settles the issue of the refugees.


2. Hamas will spin off a number of rejectionist resistance groups. These will wait for orders. Should Israel not release Palestinian funds, and should a Hamas government face failure, these unofficial franchises will start and intensify nationalist grassroots-based unconventional warfare in tandem with progress (or lack of) on the issue of financial aid to the PA.

These rejectionist groups would have to be spinned off fast before the Palestinian public loses confidence in Hamas.

A Hamas-less Intifadha, led by groups that trace their origin to (and are secretly financed by) Hamas should be a hedge against political failure.

In other words, if the financial situation is one where money is flowing but at such a slow rate that the Palestinian public will see in it a Hamas failure, the spin-off groups (and not Fateh) would restart military operations and would absorb that public’s frustration.

The spin-off groups would be a progeny of Hamas, through and through. Fateh would become even more irrelevant.

3. Hamas should receive some money from Iran and Russia, perhaps channeled through Syria. Why would Russia channel money to Hamas?

Direct intervention in Iraq and its failure have resulted in disarray in the Bush Administration. The administration is putting on a best face; but it is confused. The fact that its operatives would ask for and attend a lecture by an expert on revolutions (to understand Iran) is eminent proof that these men and women don’t know what to do. They had placed their trust in the simplistic and mediocre world view of right-wing Israel-centric entrepreneurs who are closest to them ideologically. But that perspective, in its mediocrity, proved deadly.

(They would like to take the blame for failure off of themselves and place it squarely on their Israel-centric entrepreneurs. Which would be unfair, of course, since they are as imperial and mediocre as their Israel-centric-entrepreneurs. Fortunately, they don’t dare.)

The best the Bush people can do (in their minds) is to calibrate better their world view, adding some intricacy to it, but not much. Accordingly, the Bush Administration has launched a policy of tolerance towards the Islamists in the Middle East. It hopes that this acceptance, coupled with pressure and money (carrot and stick), will cause them to moderate.

Russia read what the Bush administration was up to. It launched in response its own charm offensive towards the Islamists. It couldn’t sit idle while the United States reared the new rulers of the Arab and Islamic worlds. (The Bush Administrtion will not succeed, of course; but Russia can't afford paralysis, not after it lost its Iraq contracts.) Hence Russia's invitation to Hamas to send a delegation to Moscow and the possibility that it would channel money to the Hamas-led government.


FICTION...FICTION... AND MORE FICTION.

The United States and Israel can, of course, use fiction as a face-saving way out: Allow Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh to participate in the Hamas government; insist on control of some of the key ministries; develop a blueprint for the absorption of Hamas and the other Islamists into a Palestinian army.

And, of course, make promises about a Palestinian state, ones which will be forgotten. Until a new intifadha flares up, waged by another (larger) Palestinian generation, one that will enter the world of politics...stateless.

Plus ca change...