Initiatives of Change - UK: Newsroom editoria detailed view

The trend of events in Gaza in the first months of 2008 has highlighted once again that the current situation is untenable. Something has to give. But what? The present policy of Israel and its western allies of isolating Hamas and cutting off Gaza is both counterproductive and dangerous. Engagement, conversely, offers the glimmer of a solution.

Analysis of Hamas's past behaviour suggests that, rather than being a ‘total spoiler’, incapable of compromise, Hamas is capable of (some level of) compromise – if the political conditions are right. Hamas does not operate in a vacuum. It is a socially and politically embedded organisation which derives much of its power from popular support. Although ideologically it may remain opposed to recognising Israel, pragmatically it has to weigh up the costs of intransigence if popular opinion does not support it. Two-thirds of the Palestinian population currently supports a two-state solution.

Hamas's 2003 and 2005 ceasefire declarations are particularly illustrative of this dynamic. If Hamas were indeed a total spoiler, it would have acted to scupper any progress. But on those occasions it agreed to declare a ceasefire, even though this aided the peace process. A shift in popular opinion and increasing prospects for political inclusion influenced Hamas’s decision. Other factors played a role, from relative ‘military’ weakness as a result of Israeli policies to a temporary weakening of two of Hamas's main hardline state sponsors, Syria and Iran. But both ceasefire declarations occurred against the backdrop of intense negotiations with Fatah about ways to increase power-sharing, and a shift in popular support towards a ceasefire – coupled, in 2005, with a dramatic drop in support for suicide bombing to below 50% (for the first time since the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000). In both instances, Hamas leaders consulted people about how they would react to the movement declaring a ceasefire – or not – suggesting that popular opinion mattered to them.

Hamas is thus capable of compromise, and its decisions can be influenced by changing the cost-benefit calculus of its various options. There is a constituency within Hamas which considers compromise on one core goal (liberating all of Palestine) acceptable if this means Hamas is in a better position to fulfil its other core goals of making Palestinian society more Islamic, increasing social justice and eradicating corruption.

Those leaders who advocate pragmatic compromise are more often than not political leaders inside the occupied territories. They argue that, if popular support for resistance wanes, compromise on Israel is necessary to avoid political marginalisation. Hamas is deeply dependent on popular support from the small-business class which typically favours pragmatic as opposed to revolutionary tactics (the same applies to a lesser extent to its refugee-camp constituency whose support for radical tactics is tempered by the imperatives of daily survival). One recent poll found 25% of those supporting the peace process simultaneously favouring Hamas; in the 2006 elections, 40% of those who voted for Hamas also supported the peace process while an earlier poll suggested that 60% of Hamas supporters favoured a two-state solution. If a peace process takes hold which leads to a viable economy and removes the many obstacles to personal freedom Palestinians currently experience, Hamas would risk marginalisation if it were to continue along a hawkish path.

However, pragmatic compromise is only convincing to Hamas's hardliners – primarily, but not exclusively, paramilitary leaders or members of Hamas's exiled leadership in Damascus – if compromise on Israel leads to tangible political benefits. By mid-2006, this argument was no longer convincing, as both Fatah and the international community had actively denied Hamas the fruits of their electoral victory. By then, there was little political benefit to be gained from restraint.

For the pragmatists to regain the upper hand, both Fatah and the international community, including Israel, must change their stance and engage Hamas, even though this is costly. Israel is rightly concerned about negotiating with a party that formally seeks its eradication, and continues to target and kill its citizens. Fatah is rightly concerned about Hamas's behaviour towards political dissent in Gaza since June 2007. Any engagement with Hamas must thus be accompanied with measures which take these concerns into account and curb Hamas's ability to use violence outside the structures of state.

Some of Hamas's demands cannot be considered. Israel, for instance, can never be expected to heed Hamas's demand for its eradication. But to ignore the more legitimate of the movement's concerns is to perpetuate the instability of the current situation – just as Israel’s ignoring Palestinian concerns about settlement expansion, military incursions, and the economic effects of border closures during the 1990s contributed to the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada and the current impasse.

Engaging Hamas is not about legitimising the movement. Hamas already enjoys legitimacy on account of its representing a sizeable constituency and its victory in the 2006 election. Recent polls suggest that support for Hamas has increased, after an earlier dip following its June 2007 ousting of Fatah from Gaza, while support for Fatah has decreased. They suggest that Ismail Haniya's government in Gaza enjoys greater legitimacy than Fatah's government in the West Bank. This underscores that the policy of isolating Hamas is not working – but more, sidelining Hamas in such conditions is even more perilous, as it risks alienating large sections of the Palestinian population even further. Hamas currently enjoys the support of around a third of the overall population, and Fatah just over 40%. Many on both sides, but especially Hamas supporters, will oppose a peace agreement if it falls well short of a return to the 1967 borders – or if it excludes Gaza from the equation.

Engaging Hamas is risky, but isolating Hamas is riskier. On its own, Fatah lacks the popular support to implement a negotiated settlement, while failure to engage Hamas will increase the attraction of a return to full-scale violence, as there will be increasingly less to lose. The longer the political system remains paralysed and the feuding between Hamas and Fatah continues, the more Hamas is likely to invest in its paramilitary wing, making it less dependent on shifts in popular support towards accommodation. If, conversely, Hamas can be persuaded to throw itself behind a political settlement, the chances of its implementation will be greatly enhanced – just as Hamas’s 2005 ceasefire declaration led to a drop of two-thirds in the number of Israelis killed annually. For this to happen, Hamas must be given real political power and some of its core grievances must be met to offer the pragmatists leverage over the hardliners, even while its ability to resort to unauthorised violence must be curbed.

The choice, therefore, seems clear. All that is needed is the courage to take it.

Jeroen Gunning is deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Contemporary Political Violence at the University of Wales. He is co-editor of the journal Critical Studies on Terrorism and the author of Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence (Hurst, 2007 and Columbia University Press, 2008).

Click here for a fuller version of this column, first published in April 2008 on open Democracy .