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e-ISSN: 1647-7251

Thematic dossier - The Middle East.

Local dynamics, regional actors, global challeges

February 2022

COPING WITH EGYPT'S AND ISRAEL NORMALISATION PROCESS:

GAZA STRIP SIEGE AND HAMAS GOVERNANCE

JOÃO PEDRO BORRALHO

joao_pedro_borralho@iscte-iul.pt

João Borralho is currently enrolled in the PhD programme in International Studies at ISCTE-IUL

(Portugal) with a project focusing on hunger strikes led by Palestinian prisoners in administrative

detention. He got a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations and a Master's Degree in

International Studies from ISCTE-IUL. His main areas of interest are Middle Eastern Studies,

grassroots movements and international relations theory.

Abstract

Over the last fourteen years, the Gaza Strip has been under a land, sea and air siege imposed

by Israel and Egypt. Throughout these years, Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have endured

three Israeli military operations inside a besieged territory and have seen their lives becoming

increasingly hard to bear. Moreover, to contain 2 million people inside a 365 km² enclave,

Israel has received continuous support from Egypt. Hence, the article's focus is the Egyptian-

Israeli relationship from 1981 to 2017, the Gaza Strip siege, the Hamas governance and how

the asymmetric relations between Egypt and Israel with Gaza and its inhabitants materialise.

Furthermore, due to events such as the peace treaties signed between Israel with United Arab

Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, Israel's refusal to let Covid-19 vaccines entering the

Gaza Strip and the election of Israel's new coalition government, the topics examined in this

article are increasingly relevant.

Keywords

Gaza Strip Siege, Normalisation Policy, Israel Egypt, Foreign Policy

How to cite this article

Borralho, João Pedro (2021). Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip

Siege and Hamas Governance. Janus.net, e-journal of international relations. Thematic

dossier The Middle East. Local dynamics, regional actors, global challenges, February 2022.

Consulted [online] in date of the last visit, https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0122.1

Article received on March 15, 2021 and accepted for publication on October 20, 2021

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

February 2022, pp. 5-17

Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

COPING WITH EGYPT'S AND ISRAEL NORMALISATION PROCESS:

GAZA STRIP SIEGE AND HAMAS GOVERNANCE

JOÃO PEDRO BORRALHO

Introduction

The Egyptian-Israeli relation has been complex and very dynamic ever since Israel's

State creation in 1948. On the one hand, Egypt fought four wars with Israel; on the

other, it signed a Peace Treaty in 1979, breaking the Arab consensus of isolating Israel

and eroding the Palestinian cause (Stein, 1997: 315). Hereafter, a growing policy of

normalization between these two countries has been taking place where, currently, Egypt

is supporting Israel's siege

of the Gaza Strip. This is important since one of the article's

primary goals is to understand the contemporary situation in the Gaza Strip, and this can

only be done if the context that helped to produce the present-day Gaza is considered.

Therefore, the article will analyze the dynamics between Egypt, Israel and the Gaza Strip

to understand how (i) the Egyptian-Israeli relationship has always helped or hindered

conditions in this territory, (ii) how the siege has detrimental consequences for the

territory, and (iii) how Hamas has been governing the enclave throughout the fourteen

years of siege. This is relevant because the article addresses these topics as

interconnected issues, which helps develop the existing research in the Portuguese

academia and overcome the lack of understanding of the Hamas government and the

Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. As Sara Roy frames it, "(…) reality is always far more

complex, differentiated, and irreducible than the stereotypes that are typically

constructed for us" (2011: 17). Therefore, in this article, I tried to make understandable

the power dynamics happening between these units, to demonstrate what is happening

inside the Gaza Strip and how, as the title demonstrates, is the Hamas government

coping with the ongoing siege.

To achieve this, it is essential to consider the following consequences from the start:

80% of the population is dependent on aid; 44% is unemployed; 40% is considered to

be poor; 60% is food insecure; access to safe drinking water fell 98.3% from 2000 to

10.5% in 2014; 45% of essential medicines are not available; and, in average, there are

only 2 hours per day of electricity (UN Report, 2017: 20; B'Tselem, 2017: 1). Moreover,

doubling down on this dire situation, Palestinians cannot leave the Gaza Strip (due to the

siege), rendering them powerless to travel or look for a better future overseas. These

According to Ron J. Smith, a siege is a “(…) measure which is put in place from the state level upon

populations who see their basic needs, liberties and freedom denied with the aim of leading to political

change” and that in the case of Palestine is also a “subset of occupation practices” (2016: 750).

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

February 2022, pp. 5-17

Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

numbers and the awareness that Israel, were it not for Egypt's help, could not cause

such a humanitarian disaster inside the Gaza Strip leads to the question: "How has Egypt

foreign policy towards Gaza evolved from 2006 to 2017?" (Borralho, 2020: 2). This,

together with an analysis of Egyptian-Israeli relations, will be answered in the following

sections of the article.

1. Mubarak's Rule: Following President Sadat's Legacy and Beyond

Hosni Mubarak came to power after the assassination of President Sadat in 1981, and if

he was not the one who signed the 1979 Peace Treaty with Israel, he was the one who

executed it and made it a pillar of Egypt's foreign policy in the region. What would this

mean to the Palestinians and their national movement? What changed in Egypt's foreign

policy towards Israel and Palestine?

Three levels of analysis must be considered (Borralho, 2020; Abadi, 2006). First, the

Egyptian government’s foreign policy (political, diplomatic, economic and security

dimensions). Second, Egyptian civil society, meaning that it is critical to understand

whether Egyptian society has had the agency to constrain the governments' foreign policy

or not. Third and last are the external constraints (neighbouring Arab countries). Besides

these three levels, it is important to bear in mind that during Mubarak's rule, he had

three major goals that also impacted his ability to make decisions: the improvement of

Egypt's economy; recovering Egypt's status as the leading nation of the Arab world; and

the conservation of USA support for his regime (which would only happen through the

conservation of the peace treaty with Israel) (Kenneth Stein, 1997: 319; Ewan Stein,

2011: 739). With this in mind, Mubarak's foreign policy has been divided into three

stages: 1981 to 1993, 1993 to 2006 and 2006 to 2011 (Borralho, 2020: 18). Throughout

these three stages, Egypt's relationship with Israel progressed from 'cold peace' to

'strategic peace' (Aran and Ginat, 2014)

1.1. Three-stage Relationship with Israel

In the first stage (1981 to 1993), Mubarak's regime faced several constraints imposed

by Israel that caused and maintained the cold peace. For instance, Israel's 1981 bombing

of Iraq’s nuclear facilities; the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the Sabra and Shatila

massacre of Palestinians; Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem; settlements expansion

in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt); the backlash against Palestinians during the

First Intifada (Stein, 1997: 306). These events, among others, hindered the relationship

on the state-level, alienated Egyptian civil society's support of relations with Israel and

increased the support for the Palestinian cause. Moreover, Mubarak's goal of regaining

the confidence of the Arab neighbours (that had expelled Egypt from the Arab League in

1979) led him to take measures to reduce to a minimum the social and economic

integration of both countries (Borralho, 2020: 20). In sum, the first stage was where

Mubarak most felt compelled by the domestic and external constraints and where he

most vividly linked the Palestinian progress (or lack of it) to the normalization of ties with

Strategic peace is an intermediary stage between cold peace and stable peace. Therefore, it should be

understood in a continuum wherein one side is cold peace and the other stable peace.

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

February 2022, pp. 5-17

Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

Israel. For these reasons, and although the peace treaty was working because neither

would resort to war, their relations were cold.

The second stage (1993 to 2006) should still be understood within the cold peace

perspective for reasons such as the backlash against Palestinians during the Al-Aqsa

Intifada, the electoral victory of the Likud Party, Israeli Operation Deterrent Shield in the

oPt, and finally, due to Egypt's civil society pressure (Stein, 1997: 313; Stein, 2011:

751; Khani, 2013: 102). Nevertheless, Egyptian-Israeli relations still improved on the

state-level for three main reasons. The first was the USA’s policy change towards

Mubarak's regime from conflict reduction to mutual strategic interests. Consequently,

Egyptian-Israeli relations not only improved (as a consequence of their common links to

the USA), but Egypt became a peace mediator of the political dialogue between

Palestinians and the Israelis (Aran and Ginat, 2014: 566). The second reason, which

came to consolidate the first, was the Oslo Accords. Mubarak instrumentalized them in

his favour and pursued his mediator role between Israel and the PLO and other Arab

countries (Abou-El-Fadl, 2012: 10). With this, he successfully legitimized the growing

relations on the state-level and made Egypt the "(…) central axis for influencing Arab

attitudes and the pace of Arab normalization with Israel" (Stein, 1997: 313). Lastly, Iran

also played a role in Egyptian-Israeli relations because both countries saw Iran as an

enemy to the status-quo that the peace treaty and USA foreign policy had positively

brought them (Aran and Ginat, 2014: 15). Therefore, and although still self-conscious of

Egypt's civil society agency's constraints, Mubarak's foreign policy gradually changed

during this stage.

On the third and last stage, the former cold peace evolved into strategic peace. Two

events must be acknowledged as the most important regarding Mubarak's foreign policy

towards the Gaza Strip and its inhabitants. The first was Hamas’ electoral victory in the

2006 Palestinians Elections and consequent siege, and the second was his compliance

with Israel during Operation Cast Lead (OCL) in 2009.

To understand Mubarak's stance on Hamas, it is important to know that he was losing

popularity inside Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

. Mubarak depicted the MB as

an illegal organization that exploited religion and the fragility of citizens to accomplish

their goals (Meital, 2010: 179). He did the same towards Hamas with the aggravating

that he saw them as a proxy of Iran. For this reason, when Hamas won the Palestinian

elections and took over the Gaza Strip, Egypt followed Israel's decision to commence a

siege into this territory with complete disregard of the consequences for the Palestinian

citizens by closing the Rafah crossing

What is more, intending to lead to political change, Egypt and Israel's security and

intelligence sharing coordination reached hitherto unknown levels (Borralho, 2020: 24).

This siege sealed the Gaza Strip from the rest of the world, aggravating an already dire

economic situation and increasing the humanitarian distress of Palestinians. To

The relationship between Hamas and the MB originates from the fact that the first is a product of the Political

Bureau of the latter that existed in Gaza since 1946. During the first Intifada, Palestinian MB changed from

their non-violent approach to actively support and participate in confrontation with the Israeli occupier,

which led to the creation of the Islamic Resistance Movement, whose acronym in Arabic is Hamas (Hroub,

2002).

Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.

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Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

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Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

circumvent this situation, Hamas started to build illegal tunnels on the border with Egypt

that helped them to evade, for a while, the worst effects of the siege. This changed when

Israel initiated the OCL (2008-2009) following a violation of their ceasefire with Hamas.

After twenty-six days of Israel's offensive inside the Gaza Strip that killed 1,400

Palestinians and injured more than 5,000 (on the Israeli side, nine soldiers were killed

and 113 wounded) (PCHR, 2009: 6; Amnesty International, 2009: 6; B'Tselem, 2009:

3), Mubarak’s decisions during and after Israel's military operations, increased the

hardships inside the enclave

Along with his domestic policies, Mubarak's foreign policy started to stir Egyptian civil

society like never before. Mubarak had indeed achieved strategic peace with Israel but

forgot how critical the need to balance the domestic constraints was (Borralho, 2020:

28). Egyptian civil society took the few public demonstrations authorized in favour of

Palestine to their advantage to initiate their struggle against Mubarak's regime. The

Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and "(…) Palestine's activism became an incubator for

the protest movements that led (…) to the Egyptian uprising" and Mubarak's fall (Abou-

El-Fadl, 2012: 12).

2. President Morsi one-year in Power

Hailing from the Freedom and Justice Party

, President Morsi was democratically elected

eighteen months after Mubarak's ouster. The first presidential election of someone from

an Islamist party raised several questions. To the scope of this article, three are critical:

what would this election mean to the Egyptian-Israeli relations? Would the Rafah crossing

be open? Would he pursue the normalization process started by Mubarak?

Morsi was fully aware of the importance that the Palestinian cause had to Egyptian society

and the need to guarantee USA support for his presidency. He also knew that Mubarak's

strategic partnership with Israel and the normalization process created too much

domestic pressure (Borralho, 2020: 33). Mindful of this, Morsi adopted a pragmatic

foreign policy, combining a populist internal discourse with a realistic approach towards

Israel, the USA and Hamas. Two important events during the one-year presidency are

proof of this.

The first event happened in August 2012, when after asking Israel's permission, Morsi

sent the Army to the border with Gaza and ordered the destruction of several tunnels in

response to the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers in North Sinai by a group of militants with

links to the Gaza Strip (Rigas, 2015: 4). Hamas understood Morsi’s decision and stopped

all operations throughout the tunnels, arrested several of its members, and let Egyptian

authorities question three Hamas leaders linked to this militant group (Rigas, 2015: 4).

Decisions such as the complete closure of the Rafah crossing during Israel’s Operation; medical aid to Gaza

was forbidden; increasing efforts to dismantle Hamas tunnels; from January to November 2009, the Rafah

crossing was open only 33 days out of 301; humanitarian ships could not enter in the Gaza Strip after

Israel’s Operation was over; and, how the government tried to prevent Egyptian society from protesting in

favour of Palestine (PCHR, 2009: 28; Khani, 2013: 109).

The MB established the Freedom and Justice Party in 2011 to participate in the first democratic elections in

Egypt after the Arab Spring.

In a nation-wide speech, Morsi confirmed that he would comply with all international treaties previously

signed (which includes the Egyptian-Israel peace treaty) and that Egypt would stand by the Palestinians

and their quest for self-determination (Borralho, 2020: 32).

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Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

This first event shows three things: Morsi pragmatic policy made him willing to disregard

any religious or ideological links with Hamas if necessary; he adopted a moderate foreign

policy towards Israel and even reached new security agreements; Hamas understood

Morsi's (fragile) position and tried to help him (Rigas, 2015: 5).

The second event, which bluntly showed how Morsi differed from Mubarak's policies

towards the Gaza Strip, was Israel's second major Operation in Gaza, named Operation

Pillar of Defense (OPD)

, in November 2012. Instead of blaming Hamas for the eruption

of the conflict and sidelining them to reach a ceasefire directly with Israel (as done by

Mubarak), Morsi recalled his ambassador from Israel and called Khaled Meshaal (Hamas’

Leader) to Cairo in order to discuss a ceasefire while doing the same with Israel (Rigas,

2015: 6). These endeavors resulted in the shortest Israeli operation, and fewer victims

since the Gaza Strip siege was initiated. Morsi also tried to reconcile Hamas and Fatah

because he believed that the Palestinian cause could only succeed if a peace agreement

were to be achieved (Borralho, 2020: 34).

However, these are indeed the highlights of a one-year government. If we look at the

day-to-day changes instead, it is important to know that Morsi did not fulfil Hamas and

Palestinians' expectations in Gaza. In fact, the expectation that the Rafah border would

be open continuously for people and commercial purposes never happened. Even more,

Morsi reached new security agreements with Israel and kept the economic ones

. Indeed,

he did not pursue the normalization process and resumed a colder stance; however, the

structural changes expected to help the Gaza Strip did not materialize (Borralho, 2020:

35). In sum, Morsi’s first and most important goal was to consolidate domestic and

international support for his presidency. This failed when Morsi was ousted and sent to

jail in a military coup on the 3rd of July 2013.

3. President Sisi: The Crowning of the Normalization Process

The new Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, started by suspending the Constitution

and dissolving Parliament. After that, Sisi named the MB as a terrorist organization, a

designation he also attached to Hamas (Siddiqui, 2016: 2). This was the beginning of his

struggle against political Islam, which both the MB in Egypt and the Hamas in the Gaza

Strip embodied. Adding to this, Sisi quickly adopted a foreign policy towards Israel that

transcended Mubarak's strategic partnership and reached the rapprochement at the state

level (Borralho, 2020: 36).

Besides the fight against political Islam, Sisi promoted this rapprochement through

common geostrategic concerns and economic deals (Borralho, 2020). Consequently, a

centripetal dynamic between Sisi and Netanyahu grew, and several foreign policies were

taken by both countries that impacted their relationship and the Gaza Strip. It is also

important to consider how instability in the Sinai Peninsula, a buffer zone between Egypt

This Operation lasted eight days, and although there was no ground invasion, 167 Palestinians were killed

(including 87 civilians and 32 minors). In addition, four Israeli civilians and two security services personnel

were killed by Hamas rockets (B'Tselem, 2013: 3).

One of the most important economic deals kept by Morsi was the Qualified Industrial Zone agreement

(signed by Mubarak’s government in December 2004) that allowed Egypt to access the USA market on a

duty-free basis as long as the products made in Egypt contained at least 11.7 per cent of Israeli components

(Aran and Ginat, 2014: 27).

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Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

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Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

and Israel, has impacted this dynamic. For instance, Sisi sent his Foreign-Minister in a

visit to Jerusalem (the first visit in a decade) to discuss Israel's and Egypt's ties in the

fight against terrorism and the sharing of intelligence on the Egyptian-Palestinian border

(Siddiqui, 2016: 12); Israel re-opened its Embassy in Cairo and Sisi sent a new

ambassador to Israel after three years of vacancy; Netanyahu allowed Egypt to deploy

more troops in the Sinai Peninsula (Agdemir, 2016: 226).

Nevertheless, what has grounded Sisi's and Netanyahu's centripetal dynamics was

Hamas as their common enemy. To start, Sisi made a buffer zone between Sinai and

Gaza that Israeli leaders had called for years to hinder Hamas governance. During this

process, hundreds of tunnels from Gaza to Sinai were destroyed, worsening the enclave's

humanitarian and economic situation. If the public discourse was against Hamas and not

Palestinians, the fact is that these decisions especially hurt the Palestinian society. The

situation deteriorated again when Israel decided to start the third and biggest military

assault in less than six years in the Gaza Strip. Sisi stood beside Israel and against Hamas

(Borralho, 2020: 39).

3.1. Operation Protective Edge

The events that led to Operation Protective Edge's (OPE) eruption are not settled among

scholars. Some scholars blame Hamas for Israel's military operation, and others blame

Israel. More than to discuss who escalated to the point where Israel initiated another

military operation in Gaza, it is important to strip the western narrative that often sees

Hamas as the only one to blame in what goes wrong in this asymmetric fight with Israel.

In fact, the decisions taken by Hamas do not happen in a void but instead in a structure

where Hamas is one of several actors (Borralho, 2020: 40). Within this structure, we find

Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. All the processes that happen between them

are an outcome of their behave altogether and not only Hamas.

With this in mind, OPE started on the 8th of July 2014 and ended on the 26th of August

2014 after the USA and European Union mediation. Throughout the fifty-one days that

this military operation took place, the asymmetry on the numbers demonstrate how

Israel premeditated the destruction that they would cause by bombing a besieged enclave

from where people cannot escape. For instance, 2,251 Palestinians (including 1,462

civilians) were killed; 551 and 299 of the Palestinians killed were children and women,

respectively; 11,231 Palestinians were injured; 1,500 Palestinians were left orphaned;

18,000 house units were destroyed; 108,000 Palestinians became homeless (OCHA,

2015: 2; Filiu, 2014: 58). Six civilians died due to Hamas rockets on the Israeli side, 67

soldiers were killed inside the enclave, and 1,600 Israelis were injured (including 270

children) (OCHA, 2015). What can explain this asymmetry? How has Egypt reacted to

this?

This asymmetry is not only explained but also justified by Israeli officials as correct. To

be more precise, Israeli General Eisenkot explained that to groups such as Hamas or

Hezbollah, the plan approved was the Dahiya doctrine. This doctrine consists of the use

of "disproportionate force" to "(…) cause great damage and destruction" (Khalidi, 2010:

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e-ISSN: 1647-7251

Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

February 2022, pp. 5-17

Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

18)

. When faced with many civilians' deaths, Israel argued that they were "collateral

damage". Israeli officials also claim that it was the Palestinians' responsibility to get out

of those places because they used preventive warning techniques before the bombings.

In other words, Israel shifted the responsibility of killing civilians from its decisions to the

victims (Borralho, 2020). With this justification and by framing the Dahiya doctrine within

the "war on terror", Israel feels that the killing and destruction are justified, despite being

in breach of international law and the Geneva Convention (Borralho, 2020). Does this

mean that Hamas launch of rockets towards Israel is justified? Not at all. Hamas is not

immune to the possibility of having committed war crimes like Israel. However, it is

crucial to establish the asymmetry in the numbers and military capacities between Hamas

and Israel. Hamas is at fault, but Israel's instrumentalization of Hamas rockets to justify

the atrocities made in Gaza should not be permitted (Borralho, 2020: 42).

Making Gaza’s situation worse, this operation was undertaken with total agreement of

Sisi that, at the same time, was destroying tunnels and waging military operations in the

Sinai Peninsula. In sum, since Sisi came to power, a policy of normalization has been

pursued and successfully achieved on the state-level. Moreover, Sisi returned to

Mubarak's approach of non-dialogue with Hamas leaders and instead spoke with the PA

when he seemed fit. At the societal level, Egyptians were now and for the first time in

decades, more distant and less active in their support for Palestine, which can be

explained through the authoritarian and repressive military regime that Sisi established

Nevertheless, during the atrocities of OPE, Egyptians came back to the streets in support

of Palestine. To conclude, this operation and Sisi's foreign policy towards Gaza and Israel

pushed Gaza's dire situation to new levels (Borralho, 2020: 43).

4. Gaza Strip: Governing under Siege

Having seen how Egyptian foreign policy evolved since 1981 towards the Gaza Strip and

Israel, it is important to look inside the enclave to understand how Hamas and

Palestinians have been coping with the siege undertaken by Israel and Egypt. For this

reason, it is critical to know that Gaza is, according to the United Nations, the Human

Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), still occupied by

Israel despite the 2005 unilateral disengagement plan. Knowing this, it is easier to

deconstruct Hamas governance, the de-development of Gaza and evaluate accountability

between Israel and Hamas (Borralho, 2020: 45). The main argument of these

organizations is that despite no physical presence on the ground, Israel’s capacity of

exerting its power and impositions into the territory and its inhabitants is what counts

the most (HRW, 2017: 40; ICRC, 2015: 12)

. Therefore, adding to the ongoing

occupation, to the siege, the military operations, the withdrawal of international aid, the

Several human rights organizations (such as the Human Rights Watch) classify this strategy as a “serious

violation of international law” since it is “indiscriminate, disproportionate, and otherwise unjustified” (Buttu,

2014, apud HRW, 2007: 13; Borralho, 2020: 42).

For instance, after Morsi’s ouster, the Egyptian army killed more than 600 protesters and injured 4,000

(Siddiqui, 2016: 8). Afterwards, the new military regime also sentenced, in March and April 2014, more

than 1,000 Morsi supporters to death (Watanabe, 2014: 4).

HRW gives the following examples about Israel’s capacity to exert its power: “(…) control of movement into

and out of the enclave, of Gaza’s territorial waters and airspace (not letting Palestinians operate an airport

or seaport) (…) controls the Palestinian population registry, the taxes that collects on behalf of the PA and

the ‘no-go’ zones inside Gaza (…)” (HRW, 2017: 37).

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Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

February 2022, pp. 5-17

Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

withholding of tax revenues by Israel and the international boycott of their government

(Borralho, 2020), what constraints have Hamas faced inside the Gaza Strip that hindered

their ability to govern?

After forming a government, Hamas knew that their government legitimacy was linked

to their capacity to govern successfully and fulfil their electoral promises

(Borralho,

2020: 49). Therefore, they set themselves out to resolve the most critical issues and

started by restoring order and the rule of law. For that, Hamas took a violent approach

towards militias and clans whereby, in two years, they were capable of removing them

from the streets of Gaza and regained the monopoly over the use of force (Filiu, 2014:

331; Kear, 2019: 166). Regarding the rule of law, Hamas kept the secular system but

added the informal system based on the Sharia (Kear, 2019: 159)

. By having two

systems, which Palestinians could always use, Hamas improved the settlement of

disputes and ensured the enclaves’ 'Soft-Islamisation' (Brenner, 2017: 196). It is

important to highlight that Hamas' conception of law and order was only achieved by

reviving Islamic values and prioritizing the social order at the expanse of individual rights.

This does not mean that individual rights were not respected by Hamas, however, and

as Brenner frames it, "rights and freedoms of the individual (…) were considered to be

an effect, rather than a prerequisite, of the 'correct' ordering of society" (2017: 181).

Afterwards, Hamas worked to stop the increasing soft-power that Salafi-Jihadi groups

were attaining among several Gaza inhabitants (Kear, 2019: 156). There are different

reasons for these groups' soft-power inside the enclave. Namely: Hamas' de-

radicalization; openness to negotiating and reach ceasefires with Israel; increased

pragmatism (which can be seen by the fact that Hamas changed from their initial aim of

re-conquering historic Palestine to establishing Palestine in the 1967 territories occupied

by Israel) (Borralho, 2020: 49). These decisions were not accepted by some Hamas

militants and former Palestinian Islamic groups under Hamas' sphere of influence,

especially considering that Hamas had for their whole existence denounced Fatah and

the PLO for doing the same, leading to increase disenfranchisement, alienation, and the

questioning of Hamas ideological and religious legitimacy (Kear, 2019: 151). In sum,

Salafi-Jihadi groups attained a broad support base from Gaza inhabitants due to the

perception that Hamas became as complicit as Fatah in continuing the occupation

through collaboration with Israel (Kear, 2019: 151). In addition, the socio-economic

difficulties also increased these groups' support base.

To counter the Salafi-Jihadi soft-power, Hamas started by taking two approaches towards

these groups. The first was mediation, and the second was confrontation

. These

The most important electoral promises were: restore the rule of law and order; respect public liberties and

individual rights; reform the legal system; end corruption; curb down on more radical and militant Salafi-

Jihadist movements; end the militias and clans’ disputes; fulfil a ‘Soft-Islamization’ of Gaza; and the

implementation of an Islamic Democracy (Borralho, 2020: 49).

The informal system based on the Sharia was a Hamas measure to restore societal security and to alleviate

some of the government’s administrative burden (after the PA in Ramallah had ordered, in 2006, that their

employees in the Gaza Strip boycotted the legal system, leading to its collapse). As a result, Hamas’s

government created a system with 36 conciliation committees, each supervised by a religious scholar, with

the primary function of resolving community disputes (Kear, 2019: 160). As their rulings had no official

legal legitimacy, Hamas used the Sharia as an acceptable form of community justice.

One example of Hamas’ mediation happened when the Jaysh al-Islam group – who openly opposed Hamas

– kidnapped three foreigners and students of the Gaza City’s University (Brenner, 2017: 84). As a counter-

measure, Hamas besieged the clan’s entire neighbourhood demonstrating their strength. This led to a cease-

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Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

February 2022, pp. 5-17

Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

demonstrated that Hamas was not prepared to see its authority over Gaza questioned.

However, in the long run, Hamas also understood that these approaches would not

resolve the problem. For this reason, they took a multi-dimensional approach. First, they

regained the control and monopoly of Gaza's mosques (and replaced Salafi-Jihadi imams

by imams loyal to Hamas to control what was preached to Palestinians) where they

controlled the collection and distribution of aid (Kear, 2019: 156). This increased Hamas

soft-power. Second, Hamas created a plan of de-radicalization for Salafi-Jihadi members

and counter-radicalization for the ordinary Palestinian that showed some support for

these groups (Brenner, 2017: 114). In sum, Hamas restored their ideological and

religious hegemony, re-established law, order and security, and finally, kept Gaza's

humanitarian situation floating.

Of all the electoral promises, the implementation of an Islamic democracy is the most

difficult to answer whether they were successful or not. To start, it is important to

remember all the internal and external constraints imposed on the Hamas government.

Secondly, if Hamas’ governance is analysed through Western lens and the concept of

liberal democracy, the answer will always be negative. Therefore, it is critical to

understand all the processes inside the Gaza Strip and Hamas government decisions from

within their specific political and social-economic context that invariably defines their

reality (Roy, 2011: 17). With this in mind, and in order to understand if Hamas

implemented an Islamic democracy, we should frame Hamas decisions in a continuum

where, on one side, we have an Islamic-Theocracy and on the other an Islamic-

Democracy (Brenner, 2017: 14). While it is true that Hamas did not establish an Islamic-

Democracy per se, as they promised, they should not be accused of being an

authoritarian regime. Instead, what guided their decisions was the ever-present goal of

consolidation of power and control of the Gaza Strip (Brenner, 2017: 190). To achieve

this, the Hamas government changed their decisions contingent on the challenges it

faced. For instance, it is fair to say that in areas such as education, the legal system and

social morality, the Hamas government embraced a more flexible and moderated posture

(Kear, 2019: 274). In addition, the ‘Soft-Islamization’ was also pursued, as seen before,

but without jeopardising Gazans support for their government

. Nonetheless, it is also

important to acknowledge that concerns “(…) as safeguarding residents’ civil and political

rights (…) were of secondary importance” (Brenner, 2017: 190). Consequently, it is

possible to conclude that the shifts in Hamas’s behaviour and/or decisions resulted in

continuous movement along the Islamic-Theocracy/Islamic-Democracy continuum

(Brenner, 2017: 191; Kear, 2019: 273).

fire that assured the release of all the students and foreigners, but that gave, as well, the possibility to

Jaysh al-Islam group of retaining some arms for resistance purposes against Israel (Brenner, 2017: 87).

When mediation was not successful, confrontation was the second-best option. This happened when the

Jund Ansar Allah group declared the creation of an Islamic emirate of Palestine after a sequence of violent

attacks inside the Gaza Strip and against Israel. Hamas reacted by killing the group’s leaders and several

of their militants, besides seizing all of their weapons (Brenner, 2017: 90).

For instance, in 2009, Hamas withdrew their decision of implementing gender separation, obligatory hijab

for female university students and lawyers in the courts and a ban on women smoking shisha in public

spaces after public demonstrations against these decisions (Brenner, 2017: 98).

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e-ISSN: 1647-7251

Thematic dossier – The Middle East. Local Dynamics, regional actors, global challenges,

February 2022, pp. 5-17

Coping with Egypt's and Israel Normalisation Process: Gaza Strip Siege and Hamas Governance

João Pedro Borralho

Conclusion

The research reported here is important because it strives to fill the gap when studying

the Gaza Strip, its inhabitants and Hamas while being subject to a siege that limits and

defines their lives. This is why the relationship and policy of normalization between Gaza’s

two only neighbours’ – Egypt and Israel – is an essential part of the article. Nevertheless,

it should be highlighted that I have left out other important topics such as the ongoing

conflict between Hamas and Fatah, which also works against the well-being of

Palestinians, and the instability in the Sinai Peninsula (that has contributed to the

centripetal dynamics between the Egyptian and Israeli governments). Even so, and

despite more topics that could have been researched, no other topic created the ongoing

humanitarian disaster besides the Israeli and Egyptian siege.

The current situation is so vicious that the United Nations considered the enclave

unlivable by 2020 (UN Report, 2017: 3). The siege transformed the Gaza Strip in what

Giorgio Agamben describes as the ‘camp’, meaning, a physical space where “(…) its

inhabitants were stripped of every political status and wholly reduced to bare life” (1995:

168). In practical terms, this means that Palestinians from this territory have been

stripped of their rights, specifically to a dignified, peaceful and meaningful life. Proofs of

this are, for instance, the three major military incursions that Israel made against a

besieged territory from which the civilians could not escape and the narrative used to

frame and justify so many civilians’ deaths by shifting the responsibility to the victims.

The number of deaths on both sides also attests to the asymmetric fight between Hamas

and Israel. It should make us question how the siege and military incursions happened

while the Israeli government is not made responsible for its actions. And, per

consequence, also Egypt as it is complicit in what is happening. It is, therefore, essential

to call out to the injustices perpetrated against Palestinians while investigating “(…) the

juridical procedures and deployments of power by which human beings could be so

completely deprived of their rights and prerogatives that no act committed against them

could appear any longer as a crime” (Agamben, 1995: 168). Only by doing this can the

current narrative of a symmetric fight between Hamas and Israel be refocused to reflect

the asymmetry and unequal distribution of power between Israel, Egypt and Hamas.

To conclude, the article should be understood within a debate on the struggle for equality

in Palestine and Israel and not further domination and denial. Hence, topics such as the

asymmetry between Palestine and Israel, Sinai's Peninsula instability and links to the

Gaza Strip, or, even in a broader and theoretical discussion, the deconstruction of the

artificial clash of civilizations should be investigated in future academic research.

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