Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

The Republic of Gaza | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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If the heroes of Hamas insist on changing Gaza to a republic, then it will not be the only lame Arab country in our region. Many of its likes do exist and witness sunrise every morning despite the opinion of the people inside and outside them. Our world consists of disintegrated republics like proliferating germs, which keeps on splitting. Countries are proliferating because the dreams of their leaders are big in away that participation in governance is not suffice for them but they want countries for themselves.

Is Palestine on its way to become Somalia? Each faction wants to establish its own dream republic. This matter will not exasperate the Israelis who struggled and lost a lot to implement the disintegration and bargaining on the occupied territories and maintain them disintegrated and partitioned. They refused the idea of a one Palestinian authority a long time ago and failed to do that. But today they are about to become two republics.

Today they are on the verge of two emerging republics, the republic of Hamas and the republic of Fatah while the rest of the factions declare that they prefer to wait for a while. I do not know how the leaders of Hamas accepted the idea of seizing a besieged strip. They regard Fatah as the enemy that stands in the face of their wonderful projects. So they created a new situation that never came to the mind of the Palestinian fighters before despite the disunity which accompanied the cause from the beginning but never crossed the Jordan River as we see it today. These factions were establishing their mini-states in exile but no one dared to bypass the authority of the late Arafat inside, regardless of the grudges and the external political affiliation until recently when a leader in Hamas declared that there is no language with Fatah people but the language of the sword and rifle. So we witnessed the birth of Hamas, the authority, and Gaza, the new republic.

The question that I do not know if the leaders of Hamas thought of is: How can they run the life of one and a half million inhabitants in the strip many of whom suffered a lot since they came to power? Where are they going to get electricity, gas, funds and provide border crossings? All the aforementioned go through Israel which they do not want to sit down with. They fought Fatah and made the Palestinian people starve, claiming that they reject having negotiations with Israel. Finally they will sit down with Israel and the whole world will see them negotiating with it to preserve their rule in Gaza, to bring electricity to their offices, gas to their kitchens, and visit Iran and Syria where they have friends. They will sit with the Israelis at the time when they could not bear their brothers in Fatah. What a strange disgusting world!

People of Hamas do not invent a new world of their own. Our region is full of split countries and calls for division, three in Iraq, three in Sudan, four in Somalia, and two in Morocco at a time when the world is trying to harmonize, integrate, and be transformed into blocs that coexist and complete each other by going back to their people to vote and decide if they want to join.