Wednesday October 21, 2009

I've Been Thinking:

Abbas wants Hamas to come under his control.

The Palestinian president announced that he will call for elections this week if Hamas does not sign the reconciliation agreement that Egypt has brokered between Fatah and Hamas. The elections would be held on January 24, 2010.

Abbas would be committing Palestinian political suicide to call for elections now.

# 1: The Egyptian agreement is more favorable to Hamas than to Fatah.
The agreement allows Hamas access and lends them respectability with the West Bank. It calls for communication and mutuality between the groups. The mutuality would be in the form of communication and police. It treats Hamas as partners in governance and policing.

# 2: An election will undoubtedly help Hamas more than Abbas.
Hamas already has a majority in the Parliament and has already earned the Prime Ministry even if Abbas did take it away from them after the Hamas/Fatah break-up. There is even a distinct possibility that Hamas would unseat Abbas as president.

# 3: If Abbas does hold elections and if Hamas chooses not to participate, that weakens Abbas even further. Abbas would be seen as president of the West Bank only.

Hamas is anti-democratic and it is unlikely that they will permit elections.
There is only one possible scenario in which Hamas would permit elections in Gaza - if they are convinced of a Hamas electoral sweep in both the West Bank and Gaza which would give them a majority in parliament plus the presidency.

And that just might happen.

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