The Resilient Trials of Hamas
The Egyptian military has been distracted of late, there are so many issues that require settling. Foremost among them needless to say, is to rid the public sphere of the intransigently determined Muslim Brotherhood supporters, incited by their leaders to express their collective outrage over the removal from power of former President Mohammed Morsi, effectively emasculating Egypt's Islamists from their long-sought-after role in government.How to proceed is the problem. Having given ample warning on a number of occasions that the military plans to move in and remove the faithful from their sit-ins, the inconvenient presence of foreign observers makes their actual removal in the face of critical witnesses somewhat difficult. In any event, if violence occurs, it will be the police, assigned to that unsavoury duty of confrontation that can be blamed - even the military wearing police uniforms for the occasion.
Then there are the concerns relating to the chaos that has arisen in the Sinai, with Bedouin Islamists, al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists, Hamas terrorists, along with Islamic Jihad jihadists working to destabilize Egypt under the new, temporary government administration, directed by General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. The Bedouin speciality is destroying gas pipelines to Jordan and Israel.
The Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and Hamas terrorists' concerns twofold; to covertly enter Cairo to foment violence there; alternately to slip over the border into Israel and create there the type of disturbances that warm their Islamist hearts in duty to jihad. For their part, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has ordered tens of thousands of soldiers to the Sinai, to deflect the plans of the Islamists doing the bidding of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Thousands of smuggling tunnels have been sealed off, cutting traffic into Gaza enormously. The Hamas leadership which found it difficult to support the Syrian regime's attacks on Sunnis, among them Palestinians, severed their association with Syria's Alawite President Bashar al Assad. In so doing earning the anger of the Islamic Republic of Iran which looks unkindly on the sundering of solidarity on the part of those whom they have generously supplied weapons, training and operations funding to.
The grandiloquent display of bonhomie exercised by the visiting Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani after last year's exchange of artillery and rockets between the IDF and Hamas, with the Sheikh generously handing over $400-million to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh doesn't appear to have resulted in any further largesse under the new Sheikh. With Hamas having its regular funding cut off by Iran, an injection of operating funds is critical.
The stoppage of the passage of funds reputed to be in the area of $365-million annually flowing through the tunnels, along with the taxing of items smuggled through to the underground economy of Gaza has harmed Hamas's ability to pay its way. Despite the hatred between Fatah and Hamas, however, Fatah manages to stream a whopping $1.5-billion yearly through to Gazan Palestinians through its receipts of humanitarian funding to the Palestinian Authority.
And Turkey under its Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who boasts of his admiration for Hamas and its important "struggle" with "the occupier" is always good for some financial support. The position that Hamas finds itself now in, with its income levels cut back leaving it unable to pay salaries of its civil servants is guaranteed insurance it will return, cap in hand to Iran to pledge its ongoing loyalty now that its financial support from the Muslim Brotherhood has been sundered.
Labels: Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Islamism, Muslim Brotherhood, Terrorism, Turkey
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 07, 2013
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