Wednesday, February 22 2006

Jettisoning Ideology

Syndicated columnist Georgie Geyer believes Egypt will succeed in taming Hamas:

Many of Egypt's leading diplomats -- and it must be remembered that this country has played a major ameliorative role in Gaza, training Palestinian police and assuring the border -- are convinced that Hamas can patiently and definitively be won over. Indeed, they are strangely optimistic….

Despite its lurid suicide bomber past, Hamas has abided largely by a "Hudna," or traditional Arab ceasefire, for the last year. The most hopeful idea for this wildly uncertain Israeli-Palestinian future would be for both sides to drop their emotional demands for recognition, for immediate quid pro quo, and for all the paraphernalia of dignity and respect, and simply establish a bigger Hudna and start living alongside one another. With confidence building, new relationships could slowly develop.

Geyer’s belief appears to be based on naivete. A closer look at the Hamas charter shows that Hamas defines itself as part of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization founded in Egypt in the 1920s that has branches around the world, including Syria, Iraq, Europe, even the United States.

In Egypt, the Brotherhood holds 20 percent of parliament's seats. President Hosni Mubarak, who fears Hamas will embolden the Islamist group to seize control of Egypt, recently postponed local elections. And the Brotherhood's ties with Hamas run deep. WorldNetDaily recently reported:

Palestinian security sources close to Hamas told WND Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Mahdi Akif has been serving as a replacement Hamas spiritual leader ever since Israel assassinated former spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin in March 2004.

"Whenever there is an organizational spiritual issue, Hamas takes it to Akif," said the Palestinian source. "He gave them the blessing to run in the elections and was instrumental in using Islamic tradition to deduce it was OK to join the government. The Brotherhood in essence is helping run Hamas.

So what’s the likelihood that Hamas will jettison it’s ideology like Geyer believes?

UPDATE 2/22: The Jerusalem Post reports that a senior IDF officer’s comments about Islamic in-roads in Jordan have stirred controversy between Jerusalem and Amman. See also Haaretz, which questions the fuss.

Posted at 06:31 PM

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