Has the war released Hamas from the restrictions of authority?

When Hamas participated in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections and gained a parliamentary majority in 2006, the movement began a new and perhaps unprecedented phase in the history of national liberation movements. However, it became constrained gradually by operating as a Palestinian Authority whose origins it does not recognise; that is, the Oslo Accords. Slowly, Hamas entered a cycle of combining polar opposites: the resistance and authority under occupation.

Hamas has continuously used discourse throughout the past eight years that stresses the success of its risky experience and its main argument is based on its pride regarding its governance and protection of the people. To this must be added the development of resistance capabilities and adapting them to the needs of the time.

The truth is that Hamas was actually able to stick to a discourse and action plan that supports the resistance project; it refused to abide by the terms of the International Quartet as a prerequisite for receiving the approval of, and funding and aid from, the “international community”. Hamas also withstood the pressures of fellow Palestinians, other Arabs and international players, and it preserved the resistance, fighting three wars and achieving some sort of “balance of terror” with the Israeli occupation. In addition to this, it managed an honourable negotiations process in exchange for the release of prisoners, as well as a difficult ceasefire process during the most recent attack on Gaza. It achieved less than what was hoped for but, nonetheless, the movement did not wave the white flag despite the great sacrifices made, although the truth has many other faces.

It may be difficult at this time to talk rationally and calmly about these after a brutal fight in which Hamas and the Palestinian people made great sacrifices and showed legendary perseverance. Nevertheless, the experience would tempt anyone concerned with the future of the national Palestinian project to conduct some critical research in order to learn its lessons.

Perhaps the most debatable aspect of this experience is the extent to which Hamas and its political and resistance project has been restricted due to the fact that the responsibility of governance has been put within the context of Oslo. This organically and existentially connects the Palestinian Authority to the Israeli occupation.

These limitations more or less transformed Hamas into a hybrid body, combining contradictory matters and walking the fine line between the demands and restrictions of authority and the freedom and “unruliness” of resistance. Of course, not only Hamas suffered losses because of these restrictions; so too did the Palestinian national liberation movement which has become a state without a state, an authority without sovereignty, and a national liberation movement without unruliness and perhaps the “madness” of the resistance movements.

Throughout its eight years of governance, Hamas has had to bite the bullet with more than one party because, as long as it is governing, it cannot abandon its duties towards the people it is governing. As such, the movement became hostage to the geographical dictatorship with the “official” Egypt and, in order to perform its duties as an authority, it had to exercise utmost diplomacy, policy and sometimes “go along with” a government that is openly hostile towards the movement and has been trying for years to overthrow it.

The movement continued to switch between positions of soft and firm condemnation of Bashar Al-Assad’s crimes due to the fact that it had to preserve links and cooperate with the official sponsor of the Syrian regime, Iran. Hamas, remember, has been responsible for over 1.8 million people and it could not, as an authority, abandon its responsibilities towards them and lose any ally that may support it in carrying out these responsibilities, of which the government in Tehran was one.

The “authority’s” duties and commitments to its people is undoubtedly an important factor in all of the decisions made and policies adopted by Hamas over the past few years. Despite this, its popularity began to decrease by virtue of the nature of things because people usually do not like any “authority”, and so many of the opinion polls conducted latterly have indicated that Hamas’s popularity in the West Bank outweighed Fatah’s popularity there, while Fatah’s popularity was greater in Gaza than that of Hamas. The Islamic movement’s steadfastness in the recent Israeli aggression has increased Hamas’s popularity a great deal, both inside and outside Gaza, but the situation may go back to normal as Hamas is placed at the head of the government in the territory.

Shortly before the most recent attack, Hamas agreed to an unfair and unspecific national reconciliation agreement out of desperation. It would appear, although the movement did not officially announce this, that it realised that it would no longer be able to uphold its responsibilities and obligations as a governing authority in light of the national, regional and international conditions and given the rabid war waged by regional and international parties against it as part of the political Islam trend in the region.

With the end of the aggression, it seems that the movement isn’t too eager to return to playing the dangerous game of combining opposites, and, therefore, it has announced repeatedly its commitment to the reconciliation agreements signed in Cairo, Doha and Al-Shati refugee camp. This is the case despite the fierce media campaign that Mahmoud Abbas and his PA spokesmen have launched on behalf of Fatah against Hamas since the ceasefire agreement was announced.

Hamas may lose some of its positions when the national reconciliation government actually takes the reins in Gaza, and the national unity path may contain a lot of bumps. However, in exchange for this, the movement may be able to realise one of its greatest achievements in years, breaking free from the grips of authority and going back to being a national liberation movement; thinking less “rationally” while creating a national strategy to address the “craziest” conflict in the region.

Translated from Arabi21, 5 September, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.