Cracks in Hamas
Ehud Ya'ari , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 18, 2009
Article in Issue 21, February 2, 2009 of The Jerusalem Report.
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As the fighting continued in Gaza, important changes took place in Hamas -
changes that will have a powerful effect at the end of the war. Of course,
Hamas leaders will crown themselves with the victors' laurels and try to
sell a tale of success. But as Israel's campaign entered its third week, the
were hard-pressed to find buyers for their stories.

In the Arab world, an atmosphere of skepticism about Hamas's claims of
achievements on the battlefield prevailed, since, for the most part, these
claims have turned out to be little more than transparent lies.

The growing criticism was best expressed on the important Arabic electronic
newspaper ELAPH by Abd al-Fattah Shehadeh, who wrote on January 9 that Hamas
is hiding behind the civilian population instead of defending it, as it had
promised. Hamas, wrote Shehadeh, dug bunkers and tunnels, instead of
building shelters for the residents of Gaza.

They brought catastrophe upon the Palestinians with the misguided
calculation they had learned from Hizballah: "They turned houses and mosques
into battlegrounds so that the people would protect them and those who
trusted them now regret it."

In this climate, it's no wonder that a senior Hamas leader in Damascus,
Muhamad Nazzal, has twice threatened to walk out of live broadcasts on Arab
TV networks because the scathing questions posed to him were not to his
liking. In one incident, Nazzal found it necessary to deny that Gazans had
shown resentment against Hamas - a rare, if indirect, admission that a deep
rift has opened up between Hamas and its constituency.

The simple fact is that Hamas was not fighting in the areas penetrated by
the IDF, even though its defensive doctrine - drawn up under Iranian
supervision with the assistance of Hizballah - is based on an attempt to
stop the IDF's infantry brigades outside of Gaza City, or at least to detain
them.

Hamas abandoned the heart of "Qassamland" - the areas surrounding Beit
Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Atatra - almost without resistance. The offensive
array of bunkers and tunnels, booby-trapped buildings prepared for
detonation from afar, and all the other tricks adopted by Hamas were
captured intact. From the perspective of the people of Gaza, Hamas simply
abandoned the arena and fled into the crowded neighborhoods.

Once there, since the second day of the campaign, Hamas fighters have
hurriedly shed their uniforms. Many of them simply deserted and returned to
their families, taking their guns with them. In some locations, Hamas
prevented civilians from leaving neighborhoods that were in the line of
fire; overall, it invested great effort in blocking civilians who wished to
flee to the south of the Strip.

Hamas forcefully appropriated the few international aid deliveries, hijacked
ambulances in order to move from one location to another, and carried out
public executions of Fatah activists. In many cases, Hamas fighters showed
"forgiveness" and made do with shooting the Fatah men in the legs.

All of this was going on while the entire political leadership of Hamas was
hiding in the basements of hospitals such as Shifa in Gaza City or Kamal
Adwan near Beit Lahiya.

Sporadically, they released videos from their places of hiding. The rather
pathetic impression they created is that of a leadership that abandoned its
population and was busy trying to save its own skin.

The same goes for the military leadership. The entire command of the
Izz-al-din al-Qassam Brigades went into hiding, leaving only rocket crews to
continue firing according to pre-prepared plans, to the extent that they
were able to do so. Gradually, the signs of distress became evident here
too, due to Israel's accurate hits from the air and sea and tank fire on the
rocket launchers.

Voices began to emerge from within Hamas - in particular from activists in
the West Bank, but also from Gaza - contending that the movement's military
wing not only carried out a putsch in June 2007 when it captured the Gaza
Strip from the Palestinian Authority, but did the same thing within the
movement as well, taking over the decision-making process in the political
wing of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood.

These critics contend that the organization thus dragged the Strip into a
premature and hopeless military conflict.

More than once, I have heard from sources close to Hamas that the situation
in Gaza is similar to the disaster that befell the Syrian branch of the
Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, when its military wing, led by Marwan Hadid,
instigated an insurrection in Syria without the authorization of the
spiritual leadership. This resulted in the massacre carried out by
then-president Hafiz Asad in the town of Hamma and the wholesale slaughter
of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood detainees at the Tadmor Prison.

To this day, in internal Muslim Brotherhood discourse, the "Hamma Affair" is
seen as the classic example of how not to do things.
The case of Gaza may well take its place in the same bracket.

What we have seen thus far during the fighting is a transformation of Hamas
from a government to an underground body, from a popular mass movement to a
loose group of armed gangs. This situation will not necessarily continue for
a long time, but its memory will not be easily erased.

Hamas has the ability to rehabilitate itself and this should not be taken
lightly. But this time it will be hard to mollify Palestinian public
opinion. There is no enthusiasm for Hamas's period in power; its fighting
prowess has hardly inspired awe, and there is no longer any faith in its
leaders.

Article in Issue 21, February 2, 2009 of The Jerusalem Report.