a little white girl grab ass? yeah... we know what goes down with the journalists...
Hamas, now 'in play', could sway Saudis
Elizabeth Dickinson
After Hamas signed onto an
Egypt-brokered ceasefire with Israel last week, Khaled Meshaal, the
organisation's leader in exile, had a message that would have seemed
impossible a year ago.
He thanked Iran for its role in arming the
Sunni-Islamist group that rules Gaza and he called on Arab Gulf states
to provide arms in the future.
The statement laid bare Hamas's
fluid regional position. After breaking with the Syrian regime over its
brutal crackdown, vacating offices in Damascus and clashing with Iran
over continued support for the president,
Bashar Al Assad,
Hamas has moved tentatively away from the so-called "Axis of
Resistance" toward the patronage of Sunni Arab states such as Egypt,
Turkey and
Qatar.
Missing
from the stage so far has been Saudi Arabia, whose support or cold
shoulder could have a decisive impact on Hamas's political role.
For the last decade, Riyadh has preferred to support the secular and US-backed
Palestinian Authority
(PA) in the West Bank. Now, analysts say that Hamas's rising profile -
and the possibility that it could move away from the patronage of
Riyadh's arch rival, Tehran - may entice Saudi Arabia to cultivate
stronger ties.
"Hamas is in play," said Hussein Ibish, senior
fellow at the Washington-based American Task Force on Palestine. "The
Saudis have to ask themselves whether they want to simply stick with the
PA or also get involved in the game of trying to court Hamas. And that
raises the same question everyone is going to have to answer -
particularly the United States and Israel: which group of Palestinians
do they want to empower?"
A shift in Saudi policy would probably
come slowly, but it could affect both the political dynamics of the
region and the prospects for reopening the Arab-Israeli peace process.
Saudi
Arabia has the region's deepest pockets, arguably the closest
relationship with the US and a long history of behind-the-scenes
involvement in efforts to find peace in the Middle East."The Saudis have
become domestically focused, plus, they're trying to deal with the Arab
Spring," said Kamran Bokhari, the London-based vice president for the
Middle East and South Asia at Stratfor, which provides security
analysis. "But the Gaza conflict will push the Saudis to say, 'We've
been out of this for a while; it's time we go back in'."
In the
lead-up to the Iraq war in November 2002, Saudi's then-Crown Prince
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz sent a letter to George W Bush asking the US
president to "confirm to us that you will be seriously engaging in
solving the Middle East problem" in exchange for his support.
Saudi Arabia did not always favour
Fatah
over Hamas in Palestinian politics. In the early 2000s, US law
enforcement officials estimated that as much as half of Hamas's
operating budget, about US$10 million, came in cash from Riyadh.
But
in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US,
Washington put heavy pressure on Saudi authorities to steer clear of
Hamas, which the US calls a terrorist organisation. Saudi funding for
Hamas dried up around 2004, according to testimony before the US senate
by a treasury official a year later.
In the years since, Riyadh
has repeatedly come to the financial aid of the PA in Ramallah. In July,
Saudi Arabia announced that it would inject $100m (Dh367.31m) in
emergency cash to the PA, which relies heavily on external budget
support. Last year, Saudi Arabia contributed at least $200m.
But
Riyadh has never abandoned its relationship with Hamas, said Ghassan Al
Khatib, a former PA spokesman who now teaches at Bir Zeit University in
the West Bank.
Despite receiving international support, the PA has
seen its public support among Arabs drop in recent years over a failure
to win concessions from Israel. Its continuing attempt to win
recognition at the United Nations has so far only lost it financial
backing; the US put a months-long hold on funding to the PA over the
issue.
Hamas, by contrast, seems to be gaining leverage. A
Muslim Brotherhood-inspired organisation, Hamas seems at ease dealing with ideological allies who now run the governments of Egypt and Tunisia.
Its
armed resistance secured real gains in the latest clashes with Israel,
despite a heavy cost. In the recent ceasefire, Mr Meshaal won a minor
relaxing of the economic blockade on Gaza. "This last escalation between
Gaza and Israel increased dramatically the political prominence of
Hamas, not only among Palestinians in the Occupied Territories but also
among Palestinians everywhere and Arab people more generally," said Mr
Al Khatib. "The PA has taken the peace negotiations approach, which
seems to be not working to Israel and US. Hamas went about things using
the resistance approach which, at least this time, wasn't defeated."
Riyadh
would likely struggle to completely displace Iran as a Hamas
benefactor, since close ties to the US would preclude Saudi Arabia from
arming the organisation. Still, the regional balance would almost
certainly be altered if Hamas's patrons were largely allies of the West,
rather than foes.
Mr Ibish argues that Hamas itself may change if it won broad international backing.
"If Hamas inherits or comes to dominate the Palestinian movement, the question is, will they adapt, and in what way?" he asked.
"Will
they moderate? Will they become even more extreme? Will other radical
forces emerge? It's in the least not clear. But the point is that there
is a decision for everybody, especially the traditional backers of the
PA, about whether they want to make that kind of open-ended gamble."
edickinson@thenational.ae