Hamas considered this (linked also with the training of more security agents supportive of Abu Mazen in Egypt) as the preparation to crush them, while Abu Mazen was not ready at the same time to make progress on the two issues that Hamas was looking for as a fulfillment of previous agreements between Abu Mazen and Hamas. Namely: the issue of security partnership and the re-composition of the security departments in order to include Hamas members, and the issue of political partnership in the PLO, and also in the PA through increasing the number of Hamas employees in the Ministers in order to balance those of Fateh.

Abu Mazen, on his part, was not able to fulfill his promises in these two issues due to strategic differentiations with Hamas for instance: How can he bring them into the PLO while they reject the PLO's previous agreements with Israel? If he bring them with these rejection positions, the PLO then will be deligitimized regionally and internationally. and it will become a non-partner. On other hand Abu Mazen did achieve an agreement with Hamas on the creation of a central joint security force to be led by Said Fannounch, but a few days after that, Hamas initiated the war against the PA security forces aiming to get unilateral control of the security in Gaza.

What does it all mean?

On the one hand, the Hamas felt threatened by the American benchmark plan and the training of new agents in Egypt, simply because it does not want to change its policies, and also because it wants full unilateral control over Gaza in order to promote Islamism. They claimed that what they did was an obligatory step in order to stop the security chaos. But the question still remains: Why did they do what they did few days after the Abu Mazen- Hannieh agreement to have a joint security force in Gaza, and also a few days before the meeting of all the Palestinian factions that Cairo had called, after it finished its unilateral meetings with all the factions?

To sum up: The timing and the motivation are both connected to Hamas's desire to take over Gaza unilaterally, in order to serve the Muslim brotherhood's agenda and maybe also the Iranian agenda in its conflict with the West.
Walid Salem

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