Breathing space

by Safwat Kahlout

Ever since Hamas won an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections in 2006, Palestinians have been paying the price for practicing democracy.

From the beginning, the international community refused to deal with the result of the elections and preferred to treat them as an atonal interlude in the international political symphony. Instead of engaging Hamas, the international community imposed the three well-known Quartet conditions that Hamas, for equally well-worn reasons, rejected.

Accordingly, international financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority stopped and along with it ended the salaries of state employees. Public sector employee salaries are the engine of the Palestinian economy and as they ended, others felt the knock-on effect and unemployment and poverty rose.

At the time it was felt that that was as bad as it was going to get, but after Hamas ousted Fateh-affiliated security forces in Gaza, people here discovered that it could get a whole lot worse.

Israel locked the doors to Gaza, shut down all the crossings and even stopped heart and cancer patients from leaving Gaza to seek treatment abroad. Furthermore, Israel reduced the flow of basic humanitarian goods into Gaza and tightened the flow of fuel to the extent that people learned to power their cars on cooking gas.

Prices tripled and in some cases, such as fuel, increased six-fold. The private sector was decimated, with no raw materials entering Gaza, and some 97 percent of private enterprises had to shut, causing at least 35,000 layoffs. According to the UN, 1.1 million of Gaza's 1.5 million people became dependent on international food aid for their survival.

The above were the headlines. Gazans suffered in a thousand other ways from the sanctions. Those were in turn designed to bring people into the streets against Hamas. That uprising never happened. Hamas can still count on widespread support in Gaza from those who consider the movement a protector of national principles. Others, less charitably inclined, were afraid to protest and make their opposition known. Overall, Gazans remained steadfast, but steadfastness requires at least a minimum of the basics. As the sanctions continued, so did the motivation to break the siege, one way or another.

The ceasefire agreement, therefore, came at an important time. Gazans need a rest to rebuild what has been destroyed and start putting broken lives back together. The agreement was also the only possible outcome absent a massive Israeli military operation that would have caused immense damage and cost many innocent lives.

Moreover, the ceasefire is important because it creates breathing space for a reconciliation process between Fateh and Hamas to gain momentum. Quiet could pave the way for direct talks in Gaza. With both sides publicly stating the importance of reconciliation and public opinion firmly in favor, this would be an important development.

For Hamas, the ceasefire works both ways. On the one hand, this is the first ceasefire in eight years of violence that is mutual. Other ceasefires have been unilateral Palestinian affairs that were never respected or even acknowledged by Israel. As such, Hamas can claim a significant achievement. However, critics will point out that if Hamas wanted a ceasefire, it could have accepted ceasefires in the past, when the political landscape was different.

The sanctions did hurt Hamas' popularity and the movement understands that it needs to start living up to the promises it gave people when they in turn mandated it to lead them. The only way for Hamas to be able to govern properly is by ensuring quiet.

The question now is, how long will the ceasefire last? Gazans are skeptical. No one here has much faith in Israeli intentions. Nevertheless, we will take any amount of time offered to escape the strangulation of the past two-and-a-half years.

Safwat Kahlout is a Gaza-based journalist.