It's the Administration, Stupid

Matthew Yglesias considers a post-Hamas Gaza:

something you need to look at here is the risk that weakening Hamas will only lead to the rise of more extreme groups. The high level of power that Hamas had achieved as of last week was, after all, precisely the result of a deliberate Israeli campaign to weaken Fatah. The hope was that this would bring some more accommodationist Palestinians to the fore, but instead the reverse happened. And now that Israel is going about trying the same thing with Hamas, one needs to worry that Hamas will be displaced by Salafist groups who think Hamas is too weak-kneed.

This is a fair concern, but I find this Salafist argument to be highly unlikely. Hamas, after all, was put in power for very pragmatic purposes. The idea that Gazans elected Hamas to power as one component in the reinstatement of a creeping 'global caliphate' has been grossly exaggerated. At the end of the day, it's a question of administration and honesty. Hamas is a vast network of politicians, militants and social servants. They were ultimately given power because Fatah had proven too corrupt and too divisive to govern (which, incidentally, they are).

This is what differentiates Hamas from Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and PIJ from radical Salafists hellbent on strict Koranic doctrine. They all share a level of extremism, but Hamas is the only one of the three that has presented a governing platform that actually enjoyed popular support.

As we've learned in Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Somalia, it's stability and steady governance that often make Islamic radicals an attractive option to their usually more corrupt and autocratic alternatives. But radical groups without legitimate means to administer such government are doomed to failure (as we saw in the horrid form of "governance" Al-Qaeda implemented in Ramadi).

Israel has held to pretty limited goals since initiating the Gaza assault, and I've seen no indication that it expects to completely scrub Hamas from the territory. Clearly, there will be leaders and militants left behind to pick up the pieces and rebuild. I highly doubt, however, that Gaza will be left to an even further fringe.

For a more thoughtful analysis on the political implications of supplanting Hamas, please check out our friend and RCW contributor Meir Javedanfar.