Abdallah Iskandar
A few days following the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in November 2004, his successor as chief of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah Movement, Mahmoud Abbas, almost lost his life in an armed attack targeting a mourning tent set up in Gaza in memory of the deceased president. The assault claimed the life of one of Abbas's bodyguards and injured others. Evidently, the attackers were supporters of the Helles clan which boasts a senior Fatah member. The attack was considered part of the struggle for leadership between Ahmed Helles and Mohamed Dahlan who was present during the funeral service.
When Hamas mounted a massive operation to control the Gaza Strip and expel Fatah last June, the Helles clan stood still without firing a single round to defend its movement. This was reportedly justified by the claim that the Hamas operation targeted Dahlan and his group accused of conspiring against Hamas.
Hence, the Helles family had its own objective reasons to coexist with Hamas, the least of which was agreement over the need to end Dahlan's power. Despite this, the Sheja'eya neighborhood, the fiefdom of the powerful Gazan family, was not spared an organized military campaign that ended with lost lives, arrests and fleeing from Gaza. Absent any transparency in Hamas's security functioning, all of its "conspiracy"-related stories remain suspicious. More seriously, the Movement has not been able to find a framework of understanding with a well-known clan, thus refusing to coexist with another power in Gaza where society still recognizes the weight of family aggregations.
An indicator of this rejection is Hamas's parading of the "confiscated" weapons from the Helles clan. This raises questions about Hamas's real intentions and the manner in which it deals with other powers regardless of their political orientations.
Hamas tried to show that the weapons were illegitimate in the sense that they were not disciplined under the control of its police and armed forces. Hence, it acted as if it were the authority whose right to monopolize arms could not be questioned. Yet, it deliberately neglected the fact that it was an Islamic Resistance Movement and the advocate of the theory of the right to liberation by means of weapons in the hands of the people. In this sense, its "confiscation" of the weapons in the hands of the Helles men who are not only known for their hatred for Israel, but also for their actual involvement in confronting the occupation, reveals that Hamas is heading in the direction of monopolizing arms and prohibiting others from carrying weapons. This transformation becomes a drawback for Hamas in its keen efforts to achieve calm with Israel at present even while repeatedly announcing otherwise.
This desperate desire to disarm a significant side in Gaza was confirmed by the viciousness of Hamas's attack against the Sheja'eya neighborhood and the massive destruction inflicted upon the houses and infrastructure there. This raises questions about the degree of enmity toward the residents of the neighborhood and the futile excuse of chasing fugitives used to justify the attack. Several stories were reported about repressive and revengeful practices against detainees and even against unarmed civilians, practices that were no less hideous than those associated with the occupation troops. This bears resemblance to the day when Hamas swept across Gaza over a year ago, positioning itself as a party that will not hesitate to commit such atrocious practices against its own people.
Hamas insisted on chasing the fugitives until it forced them to seek refuge in Israel. The Hebrew state will ultimately exploit this event as reveals the way it treated those fugitives. However, questions are raised for Hamas which forced citizens of its own, fleeing its liquidation attempts, to seek refuge with the enemy.
The issue is not confined to the Helles clan. Hamas had previously engaged in armed conflict with the Daghmash clan although the confrontations were not as bad as the assault on the Sheja'eya neighborhood. It is feared that these confrontations will be renewed to target the Army of Islam under which the Daghmash family operates. Needless to mention, the Army of Islam helped kidnap the Israeli solider Shalit whose imprisonment allowed Hamas to set its new negotiation-based strategy to release him.
Repeated skirmishes with other Palestinian factions have also been witnessed, especially with the Popular Front and Jihad. The Movement's fighters have waged campaigns and arrested detainees. Although none of these reached the magnitude of open armed confrontation, the risk of escalation remains high at all times. Hence, the Movement uses its call for dialogue and reconciliation to cover up a plan that aims at terminating the others, even if it has to resort to the same approach it adopted to conquer the Sheja'eya neighborhood.
* Published in the London-based DAR AL-HAYAT on August 6, 2008.
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