FACTS ON THE GROUND: THE GROWING POWER OF HAMAS’S GAZA LEADERSHIP By Jonathan Spyer* This article will observe the process whereby Hamas has consolidated and maintained its rule in Gaza. It will argue that the gradual strengthening of the Gaza leadership within Hamas preceded the upheavals of 2011. The fallout from the events in Egypt and Syria, however, served to accelerate and accentuate the process whereby the Gaza leadership made gains at the expense of the external leadership. INTRODUCTION was heavily dependent on Iranian arms and money. The upheavals in a number of Arab The outbreak of an uprising against the countries that began in the spring of 2011 have Asad regime in Syria placed Hamas in an presented the Palestinian Islamist Hamas uncomfortable position. The uprising rapidly movement with both dilemmas and took on a sectarian aspect. It consisted of a opportunities. On the one hand, Hamas is the revolt largely by Sunni Arabs against a non- Palestinian branch of the Muslim Sunni dictatorship. The Asad regime, Brotherhood, and various branches of this meanwhile, responded to the uprising with trans-national movement have emerged as extreme brutality. Around 16,000 people have winners as a result of the upheavals. In Egypt, died so far as a result of its attempt to crush Tunisia, and in a more complex way also in the opposition. The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood has vastly Syria was of course a supporter of the increased its power and influence as a result of uprising, and rapidly moved toward a the decline and/or collapse of the secular, powerful position within the main opposition nationalist military regimes in those countries. alliance, the Syrian National Council. Iran, Most importantly, in Egypt, the Muslim meanwhile, provided vigorous support for the Brotherhood now dominates the parliament, Asad regime in its attempt to crush its and is contending for the presidency. opponents. Other elements of the “resistance For Hamas, the rise of the Muslim axis,” such as Hizballah, also played their part. Brotherhood in Egypt is of central This presented Hamas with a dilemma. On significance. Since July 2007, Hamas has the one hand, its strategic allies and hosts were maintained exclusive control over the Gaza engaged in a combined effort to crush a threat Strip area, which borders Egyptian-controlled to one of their allies. However, on the other Sinai. The prospect of Muslim Brotherhood hand, the threat consisted of an uprising by rule in Egypt is thus of strategic importance Sunni Muslim Arabs against a brutal, Alawi for the movement.1 Yet the Arab upheavals regime. This uprising, furthermore, was of at have also presented a challenge to Hamas. In least partially Sunni-Islamist character, and the mid-1990s, the movement began building Hamas’s fellow Muslim Brothers were playing a close alliance with Iran and its so-called a prominent role in it. 2 “resistance axis,” which includes the Shi’i Hamas dealt with this dilemma by quietly Hizballah organization and the Asad regime in withdrawing its leadership from Damascus, Syria. Hamas’s overall leadership was based while declining to hold public events in in Damascus. The Gaza enclave, meanwhile, solidarity with the Asad regime in the 44 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 2 (June 2012) Facts on the Ground: The Growing Power of Hamas’s Gaza Leadership movement’s Gaza enclave. At the same time, 1994--with the help of the international donor the movement hoped not to sever relations community. entirely with Iran and its allies. The main Once the question of power had been political fallout from this new situation facing settled at the highest level, the movement Hamas has been the relative strengthening of appears to have experienced little trouble in the movement’s Gaza leadership, at the administering this apparatus. According to one expense of the overall external leadership. report, Hamas “succeeded in monopolising This has manifested itself most clearly to date control of governance functions in Gaza, in the decision to transfer crucial areas of including security, economics, welfare, and authority, including over the movement’s the public infrastructure” 3 within six months budget, to the Gaza leadership, and away from of the June 2007 coup. How was the Khalid Mash’al, the movement’s nominal movement able to achieve this? leader. This article will observe the process Gaining Security Control whereby Hamas has consolidated and maintained its rule in Gaza. It will argue that The first issue facing Hamas was the the gradual strengthening of the Gaza consolidation of its security control of the leadership within Hamas preceded the Gaza Strip. Observation of the establishment upheavals of 2011. The fallout from the events of Hamas’s power in this sector shows the in Egypt and Syria, however, served to way in which the movement has succeeded in accelerate and accentuate the process whereby absorbing the machinery of the PA, leaving the Gaza leadership made gains at the expense much of it in operation, while placing it firmly of the external leadership. under the supreme authority of Hamas. The longer-term process derived from the Following the 2007 coup, the Ramallah-based fact that the Gaza leadership has built up a Palestinian Authority leadership called on all strong and stable center of real power and PA security forces to cease operating in Gaza. actual rule over the Palestinian population in At this point, Hamas had two forces available Gaza. The external leadership could boast no for its use. These were the movement’s long- similar tangible asset. It did, however, handle standing armed wing, the Izz al-Din al- relations with the movement’s main patron in Qassam Brigades, and the Executive Force, Teheran. The relative lessening of the which Hamas had been building up around the importance of this relationship made the Interior Ministry held by Fathi Hamad in changing balance of power in the movement a Gaza. near inevitability, with the consequences that The Qassam Brigades benefited from the followed. capture of a large arsenal from the PA following the coup. The Brigades and the HAMAS IN GAZA: A QUASI- Executive Force succeeded in the period ahead SOVEREIGN ISLAMIST ENTITY to establish themselves as the dominant armed force in Gaza. While the Qassam Brigades The Hamas movement has exercised remained engaged with the primary movement exclusive control in the Gaza Strip since 2007. task of “resistance” against Israel, the Following the collapse of the short-lived PA Executive Force was divided into three national unity government and Hamas’s armed separate branches in the period immediately ousting of Fatah from the Strip in June 2007, following the 2007 seizure of power. These the movement took over all functions of public included the Civil Police, the Internal Security administration in the Gaza Strip. Hamas Forces (an agency concerned with intelligence inherited the relatively sophisticated gathering and security within Gaza), and the administrative apparatus, which had been National Security Forces, which functioned as developed by the Palestinian Authority since an external border guard and defense “army.” Hamas sought to present these as “non- Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 2 (June 2012) 45 Jonathan Spyer political” forces quite separate from the Hamas monopoly of power. When they Qassam Brigades and Hamas’s own security overstepped this mark, as in Khan Yunis in structures. To this end, the Civil Police and 2009, they were dealt with swiftly and National Security Forces were nominally effectively. 6 headed by non-Hamas figures. The police, It is likely that Hamas preferred to allow notably, were headed by Tawfiq Jabir, a Islamic Jihad and other smaller groups to former Fatah man, until his death on the first maintain their military capabilities, as these day of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in 2008. could provide a certain deniability for the He was replaced by Brigadier General Abu Hamas authorities when they nevertheless Ubaydah al-Jarah. 4 wished to put pressure on Israel. Ironically, Statements by senior Hamas figures this process resembles the use made of Hamas notwithstanding, it is highly doubtful that a by the PA leadership in the 1990s. Hamas’s coherent case can be made of any real long claim to represent an Islamic resistance separation between Hamas movement and option also meant that it was reluctant to “civil” security structures. This is because the challenge frontally organizations purporting to civil structures are in any case ultimately represent either of those principles in a more answerable to a political leadership consisting rigorous way than did Hamas itself. entirely of Hamas men. The Hamas Nevertheless, Hamas did act against these movement structures and the “civil” structures groups if and when it felt that its own position are both instruments available to the Gaza was threatened, ensuring its ultimate authority. leadership, and can work separately or in Hamas also worked to curb independent armed coordination with each other depending on the activity by clan-based groups. In so doing, it context. succeeded in creating a far calmer public Still, the attempt to bring into existence space than had existed under PA rule. different and parallel security structures, with Having established its ascendance, if not one more politically loyal to the leadership but quite monopoly, of the means of violence in all ultimately subordinated to it resembles Gaza, Hamas then set about achieving control practices familiar with other authoritarian over the tunnel system from Egypt that was Middle Eastern regimes of nationalist, the main means for the smuggling of Islamist, and monarchical types. Syria, the weaponry and other goods into Gaza. With West Bank Palestinian Authority, Iran, and this achieved, the movement was able to begin Saudi Arabia each in their own way have the process of turning its makeshift military maintained similar systems of parallel forces into a quasi-army, armed with authority, with more ideologically “pure” units sophisticated weapons systems brought in via with their own systems of command the tunnels.