September 18, 2015
Caught between the
stalled reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, the unending political rift with
Fatah, and a dire financial
crisis, Hamas is seeking a way
out of its post-2014 war predicament. The organization has been investing in
ending its international isolation by re-kindling regional relationships and
regaining past and new
sources of financial and political support. Hamas’s careful hedging strategy to
repair the damage to its international ties has delivered only mixed results.
In Egypt, Hamas gained
and then rapidly lost an ally by backing the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The economic and political damage of its fallout with Egypt cannot be underestimated: the combination of crackdowns against Gaza’s underground
tunnel economy, a buffer zone, and steady border restrictions have
significantly complicated the already dire economic and humanitarian situation
in the strip. Egypt’s regional status and its historic role and weight in
inter-Palestinian affairs have ensured that Hamas—despite its deep objections
to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s policies regarding Islamist groups in
Egypt—has spent the past year attempting to do damage control. It has done so not only by repeatedly highlighting its interest
in mending the relationship with Egypt, but also by stressing the group’s
shared security concerns and commitment to curbing Salafi-jihadi
groups, including
self-proclaimed pro-Islamic State ones, operating in Gaza. To date, only modest results have been achieved, such as Egypt
partially softening its anti-Hamas rhetoric—also thanks to some Saudi
intercession.
Yet a major change in
Egyptian policy does not seem to be in the cards. The Rafah crossing was open
merely eighteen days between January and July 2015, and despite the four-day opening
in August, the small steps taken by Egypt are hardly a revision of its policy
of isolating Gaza. The mistrust is reciprocal. Hamas reacted to the news that
four members of the group’s armed wing had been mysteriously kidnapped
in Sinai in late August, allegedly by an IS-affiliated group, with a mix of
dismay and doubt, criticizing Egypt for not doing enough to solve the hostage
crisis.
Hamas’s fallout with
Egypt is even more significant given the Palestinian group’s unresolved
tensions with Iran. In the past two years, Iranian funding to Gaza has
undoubtedly diminished, and the repeatedly rumored visit by Hamas Political Bureau Chief Khaled Meshaal to Tehran has
yet to take place. Restoring a working relationship with Iran reveals the
potentially contradicting interests Hamas is pursuing. Remaining in good terms
with the Iranians is especially important to the group’s armed
wing, aware of the Islamic
Republic’s not-so-easily replaceable military support. Yet Hamas’s broader
regional foreign policy strategy—including its re-engagement with Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s stances on the conflicts in Syria and
Yemen—make it impossible to go back to the warm pre-2011 strategic alliance
with Tehran.
Indeed, Hamas’s interest
in preserving ties with Tehran is weighted against the group’s efforts to
restore its relationship with Saudi Arabia, which drifted away from Hamas following the
group’s conflict with Fatah in 2007. In 2015, the internal leadership change in
Saudi Arabia under King Salman and Hamas’s external outreached efforts have led
to a steady yet gradual rapprochement between the two parties. The culmination of this process was
the July 2015 high-profile delegation Meshaal led to Riyadh. Yet the portrayal of these meetings as a
“strategic shift” away from Iran is largely exaggerated. It is true that Saudi
Arabia is today closer to Hamas than it had ever been since 2007; but still
Riyadh went out of its way to officially deny any change in its Gaza policy, affirming that Hamas’s visit to
Saudi Arabia was religious and not political. However, Saudi Arabia has
definitely shown increased interest in brokering
some level of understanding between Hamas and Egypt; and its renewed contacts
may lead the country to step up its financial support for Hamas as part of its
efforts to solidify its regional camp.
For its part, Hamas
largely seeks to improve ties with Saudi Arabia while preserving its
pre-existing regional interlocutors, including Iran. And following the same
regional hedging strategy, Hamas also remains invested in Doha and Ankara,
while mindful that the countries’ political backing and financial
support—though important—are no substitute for that of Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Qatar’s political support for Hamas has been to some extent overstated; its
financial backing for the Gaza Strip has been constant but also falls substantially
short of its own pledges. Yet
even with these limitations, Qatar remains an incredibly important diplomatic
base and informal broker for Hamas, which has time and again gone out of its
way to praise
Qatar’s role in the Palestinian arena in general and in Gaza specifically.
Similarly, Hamas has been very appreciative of Turkey’s diplomatic backing, its efforts to mediate between Fatah and Hamas, and its
relatively open door policy in hosting
members of the group.
Hamas hopes to leverage
these relations to break its international isolation and maximize its
diplomatic, political, and economic support. Ankara, Doha, Riyadh, and (to a
lesser extent) Cairo are part of Hamas’s shuttle diplomacy, a careful
rebalancing of the group’s foreign policy that has so far delivered at least a
modest improvement in Hamas’s regional standing. For their part, each of these
regional players—albeit for different reasons and with a different sense of
urgency—is interested in tackling not just intra-Palestinian reconciliation but
also engaging in a long-term conversation with Hamas over reaching a prolonged ceasefire
with Israel. Despite the lack of a
direct dialogue or a mutually agreed framework, virtually
all the main regional
stakeholders (including former Quartet Envoy Tony Blair
in an individual capacity) have been interested in advancing different
frameworks that could lead to longer-lasting calm between Hamas and Israel.
This renewed international attention toward brokering an informal understanding
and in reconstructing Gaza is itself a positive development. But success is
difficult without a cohesive regional strategy, and Egypt and Israel have made
minimal policy changes with respect to Hamas and Gaza. Failure to achieve a
breakthrough on Gaza is conversely going to put further pressure on
Hamas—especially as the situation in the strip becomes even less sustainable—increasing the chances of yet another round of conflict.
In this context of
uncertainty, it certainly makes sense for Hamas to continue in its proactive
hedging strategy and to avoiding being trapped in the region’s increasingly
polarized politics and having to choose between Tehran and Riyadh. Picking
sides would also further stir internal conflict within Hamas. Although pursuing
relations with Riyadh, Cairo, Doha, and Ankara boosts Hamas’s political and
diplomatic profile, these governments are unlikely to support the group’s armed
wing. So any attempt by Hamas to disengage completely from Iran would also
upset the already fragile internal equilibrium between political and military
leaders. Balancing between Tehran and Riyadh reflects the group’s larger
efforts to meet the interests of both Hamas’s Gaza-based political leaders and
its military wing. Yet in the future, if regional politics continue to become
more divided and polarized, Hamas may find it harder to keep this balance. In
this sense, Hamas’s choice of regional partners today could be consequential
for the group’s overall strategy and internal cohesion in the long term,
potentially altering the balance between its political and military objectives.
This article is reprinted with permission from Sada. It can be accessed
online here.
Benedetta Berti is a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies,
a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, a TED 2015 Fellow, and the author of Armed Political Organizations. She is a regular contributor to Sada.