FLASHBACK: HAMAS: FEBRUARY 2006

Here’s a likely course 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 grass-root-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 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 the public’s frustration.

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