Love of the Land: Can Hamas Be Stopped from Seizing West Bank?

Can Hamas Be Stopped from Seizing West Bank?

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
05 January '10

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, are hoping that Israel will withdraw to the pre-1967 lines within the next two years to enable the Palestinians to establish an independent state with half of Jerusalem as its capital. But under the current circumstances, an Israeli pullout from these areas could, ironically, mark the beginning of the end of the Abbas-Fayyad era.

In an interview published this week in a Kuwaiti newspaper, Abbas revealed that he had solid proof and “verified information” that Hamas was planning to take over the West Bank. It could also see the Iran-backed Hamas movement and its allies sitting on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. If Israel wants to pull back from any territory, it needs to make sure who is going to be in control of that area.

The last time Israel withdrew from a territory was in the summer of 2005, when it handed the Gaza Strip over to forces loyal to Abbas. Two years later, Hamas managed to toss Abbas’s people out of the Gaza Strip in less than a week. If Israel repeats the same mistake and hands over the West Bank to Abbas and Fayyad when they are still weak and do not enjoy much credibility among their own people, there is no doubt that Hamas will end up sitting on hilltops overlooking Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv, and the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority say that Hamas has never abandoned its dream of extending its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.

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Love of the Land: Can Hamas Be Stopped from Seizing West Bank?