Over the past 2 or 3 years, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have changed their fundamental approach to dealing with their long list of conflicts. The move has been from one of micromanaging their adversaries through invasions, continued low-grade warfare, and underhanded support of whoever, in military parlance,is the "good guy" of the moment.
What looks like defeat for Fatah and the Palestinian authority may in fact be a shrewd isolation and marginalization of Hamas. A week ago, Hamas soldiers stormed Fatah security installations across the Gaza strip, stomping on pictures of Mahmoud Abbas and Yassir Arafat in a bloody victory over the sell-outs and compromise artists. In no time at all, Hamas gained total control over the security apparatus of one of the region's hottest pieces of beachfront property. Yet Abbas, sitting impotently in Ramallah, watched not in horror, but in a state of cautious calculation. Gaza would be a sacrifice pawn in a game that last week looked all but hopeless for the Fatah reformers.
A week later, everything looks different. Egypt and Israel have closed their border crossings with the Strip, the Fatah-Hamas coalition government is dissolved, and the US and Israel are working on freeing up hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen assets for Fatah to get back in control over the West Bank and become a broker on a deal. From Damascus, Gaza City and other sources away from the Arab leadership mainstream, cries of an undemocratic coup d'etat are made; they say Hamas was stripped of its power outside the normal channels, that the other side cheated. But the rules were broken first by Hamas when they staged their own highly-organized overthrow of the power arrangements they'd previously negotiated with Fatah. They broke the rules and now they cry foul.
Hamas' meteoric rise to power may have burned itself out. It will be demonstrated to Palestine and the world that Hamas cannot rule effectively, and it will be done without any provocation or intervention by their sworn enemies, Israel and the US.
I think Abbas took this play straight from Ariel Sharon. In fact, this could be viewed as a seamless continuation of Sharon's disengagement strategy. This process got started when Gaza's 8000 settlers were no longer worth the tens of thousands of Israeli troops patroling their barbed wire perimeters day and night. Rather than keeping a hand in a place without much historical or ideological gravity for Israel, they made the correct cost-benefit analysis. Holding on to Gaza was stupid.
Sharon made the call that the only thing holding Gaza and the Hamas-Fatah coalition together was the basic security that came with Israeli occupation, and all the negative press that came of it. Without Israel in the scenario, they would be left staring at each other, wondering who would make the first move, and ultimately tearing each other apart. Today, this leaves Israel and America with a clear choice on who to support, and a strong postition to dictate terms in any negotiation.
The Qazzam rockets launched out of the Southern Strip have peppered the immigrant town of Sderot for months now. Qazzams are not a good thing, but they beat the heck out of the occupation of the Strip, or an invasion that would not only cost lives, but the priceless capital of worldwide (and Arab) public opinion on Israel. By choosing to do nothing, in any long-run calculation, Israel comes out on top and relatively unscathed, while Hamas gets to prove it can't handle the job.
The tit-for-tat assassinations between Hamas and Fatah, or the tedious attack-counterattack pattern between Israeli forces and the various militant groups in Palestine got nothing for no one. The lesson here is that conflict often thrives on conflict. Disengagement isn't necessarily the cowardly way out. It can be a prudent and effective way for nations and movements to get what they want, provided that it is managed correctly. There are clear lessons here for the West Bank, not to mention Iraq.
