Research paper: The Gaza Strip between its reality and its trajectories

In a new policy paper issued by the Arab Reform Initiative in Paris, Omar Shaban writes of the understandings that took place between the Hamas movement, Egypt, and Mohammed Dahlan, and the fears and hopes they stirred that the Gaza Strip's future is on the verge of taking shape; and the substance of Hamas's recent announcement of dissolving the committee it had established to manage the Strip's affairs. The paper likewise offers a number of recommendations concerning the handling of the Palestinian cause.

Shaban says these understandings came within the frame of an Arab–American vision for ordering the region, reformulating the regional axes, and resolving the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. Yet the sudden variable of the understandings (Dahlan – Hamas – Egypt) brought about transformations that can be read through four scenarios.

The first scenario, which takes up achieving reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas movement, counts as the best for gathering the Palestinian family. But it still falters.

As for the second, resting on the understanding between Hamas and Dahlan away from the Palestinian Authority — it may end with the Gaza Strip's separation and the elimination of the chance of establishing a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, if it proceeds without consensus.

As for the third scenario, which puts forward a security approach in return for improving living conditions in the Gaza Strip — it may be accepted grudgingly by the parties. But there is fear it turn into a permanent situation leading to the establishment of a statelet of Gaza.

As for the fourth, holding the possibility of a new war breaking out on the Gaza Strip — it is catastrophic, though currently ruled unlikely given the Egyptian intervention and the region's states' lack of need for a new war that would disrupt the regional solution and the awaited rapprochement with Israel in facing terrorism and Iran.

Concerning Hamas's announcement in September 2017 of dissolving the administrative committee for whose formation it had been punished by the Palestinian Authority, the writer sees it as an appreciation of the Egyptian effort and a tangible expression of the growing coordination and understanding between the two parties.

The paper recommends in the end achieving reconciliation and enabling the consensus or national-unity government to perform its tasks; not thrusting the Palestinian cause into the regional disputes and alignments; and holding fast to the resolutions of international legitimacy as the guarantor of ending any claims that may result from the initiatives' shortcomings.

The paper likewise recommends that the international community move seriously to solve the Palestinian cause, whose solution would contribute to closing the door of terrorism in the region, curbing the waves of migration, and calming the regional conflicts.

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