Whereas Hamas operated freely in Egypt when Muslim Brotherhood was in power, in Egypt today a Hamas official is watched by police and is no longer able to privately entertain journalists in a spacious Cairo office.
8/5/14, "A Part of Hamas Negotiates, and Another May Fight Again," NY Times, David D. Kirkpatrick, Cairo
"As
both sides prepare for talks about extending a three-day truce, Israel
is coming to the negotiating table emboldened to demand that Hamas
surrender its weapons completely — what Israel calls the
“demilitarization” of Hamas’s stronghold, Gaza. Without disarmament,
Israel says, it will not ease its blockade of the territory.
Egypt,
the broker of the talks and once a friendly face to Hamas, has now
joined Israel in pushing to cripple the militant group. It favors
putting Gaza under the control of a unified Palestinian government
formed by a recent deal between Hamas and its secular rival faction,
Fatah, in the hope that the new government could disarm Hamas.
But Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas political leader, said during an
interview in Cairo that Hamas would still come out ahead. He said the
group welcomed the new coalition government but would keep its military
wing distinct — and allow it to prepare for another potential war with
Israel.
The Hamas brigades “are completely separate,” Mr. Abu Marzook said.
Hamas’s
civilian, political wing had put itself under the government, he said,
and its political leaders continued to speak and set policy for the
military wing. But he insisted that the Hamas fighters would remain
outside the new government’s control. “Of course, they are outside the
unity government,” he said.
Even
though both Israel and Egypt want the newly formed Palestinian “unity”
government to defang Hamas and its military wing, called the Qassam
Brigades, “they can’t get that,” Mr. Abu Marzook said. “It is as simple
as that, like the way that Israel wants to destroy Qassam, and they
haven’t done that, right?”
Analysts
said the split Mr. Abu Marzook described — with Hamas’s political
leaders standing behind the new government, while its military wing
stays independent — might be the group’s only hope for preserving some
military clout while also getting some relief from the blockade for
Gaza’s residents.
Both
Israel and Egypt, its two neighbors, have made clear that they are
unwilling to loosen the border restrictions significantly as long as
Hamas is looking across from the other side. But ostensible control of
Gaza by the new reconciliation government — which has renounced
violence, recognized Israel and embraced the peace process — could be
more palatable.
But
if Hamas succeeds in keeping its Qassam Brigades independent and
viable, that would appear to portend new clashes with Israel. It could
also mean clashes with the new Palestinian government’s internal
security forces, which would jostle with the brigades for control of
Gaza.
The
military-civilian distinction within Hamas “is the only way toward a
cease-fire” for the group, said Nathan Thrall, an analyst who studies
Gaza for the International Crisis Group. But “it definitely injects an
element of volatility,” he said."...
[Ed. note: Seed money for "The International Crisis Group" was provided by George Soros (p. 6) who's also on the Group's Board of Trustees, "Ex officio, and member of Board of Directors".]
(continuing): "Indeed,
Mr. Abu Marzook insisted that Hamas’s brigades would be ready for the
next round. “We don’t like to see any fighting,” Mr. Abu Marzook said,
but “we know how to make our resistance each time better than the
previous time.”
Hamas’s
fighters, weapons and tactics, he said, have grown more effective during each successive battle with Israel. Its fighters this year killed
more than 60 Israeli soldiers, tunneled into Israel to stage ambushes
there and fired rockets far enough to menace the Tel Aviv airport — all
unexpected demonstrations of Hamas’s increased ability to harass the
far-superior Israeli force.
But
the new pressures brought on Hamas were readily visible around Mr. Abu
Marzook. Under Egypt’s former Islamist government, ideologically allied
with Hamas, Mr. Abu Marzook entertained journalists in a spacious office
on the outskirts of Cairo.
But
since the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president, the new government has
turned intensely hostile toward Hamas, and Mr. Abu Marzook is no longer
so free.
Wearing
a dark suit and open collar, Mr. Abu Marzook entered a hotel lobby
trailed by competing teams of Hamas bodyguards and Egyptian secret
police. The police barred him from holding meetings in the privacy of a
suite and demanded the identification of journalists interviewing him.
The Hamas guards positioned him far from windows, with his back to the
wall.
He
said that Egypt’s close monitoring of his communications limited his
contact with others in Hamas; he said he had no direct contact with its
military leaders.
In
addition to the loss of its allies in Cairo, Hamas is still working to
repair its relationship with Iran, which has provided critical support.
Their relations chilled after Hamas pulled its political headquarters
from Syria and sided with the Sunni Islamist-led uprising against Iran’s
allies in the Syrian government.
The
efforts of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran to improve relations with
the United States, or at least to obtain a deal to roll back sanctions
over its nuclear program, appeared to have slowed the easing of tensions
with Hamas, Mr. Abu Marzook said, adding, “He wants to solve the
problems with the West.”...
Still,
after more than 1,600 Palestinian deaths in Gaza from the Israeli
attacks over the last month, Mr. Abu Marzook said Tuesday that Hamas had
won a victory just by surviving and argued that Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu of Israel had failed to achieve any of his goals. Mr. Abu
Marzook said Hamas had gained popularity, remained able to fire rockets
at Israel, and could re-establish its network of tunnels under Gaza.
For
agreeing to the cease-fire, he argued that Hamas should receive relief
from the blockade on its territory. “The Palestinians should gain
something out of these battles,” he said. “They want the siege to end;
they want all the gates to open.”
That
is a nonstarter with Israel and Egypt while Hamas controls Gaza, but
Mr. Abu Marzook said Hamas was prepared for the unified government to
take over, including assuming responsibility in Gaza for security and
the borders.
He
acknowledged that some tensions remained. Hamas and the Palestinian
Authority, controlled by Fatah, have parallel payrolls of employees to
run Gaza.
“Two
people on one chair is very difficult,” Mr. Abu Marzook said. “Now it
is our duty to resolve this problem and make a real unity Palestinian
government.”
But
he brushed off past concerns within Hamas about the possibility that
the loyal presidential guard of its chief rival, Fatah’s leader, Mahmoud
Abbas, might take positions in Gaza.
“We will not make any problem when they take over responsibility there,” he said of the new government’s security forces.
As
for Hamas’s own fighters, Mr. Abu Marzook insisted that he could still
speak for them despite their nominal independence, as he said he had
done in negotiating the cease-fire.
“I
sent a message to our civilian people in Gaza, and they transferred
that to Qassam, who said, ‘O.K.,’ and they put their fire down,” Mr. Abu
Marzook said. “They listen to me as the one who is in charge of the
political position,” he added. “It is one organization with two wings or
two departments, if you want clarification.”"
"A version of this article appears in print on August 6, 2014, on page A9 of the New York edition."
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Comment: NY Times is free to include expert "analyst" opinions from whomever they please such as the so-called "International Crisis Group." Readers are equally free to inform themselves about those the Times uses to sell its views. Has the Times ever wondered what a psychiatric evaluation of George Soros would find? I guess not.
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