The Mecca Agreement in a Regional Context by Sam Cassanos

Over a year has passed since the watershed Palestinian Authority (PA) parliamentary elections that brought Hamas to power. The sources of Hamas’ success, often wrongly explained in America as an expression of the Palestinian people’s opposition to the two-state solution, was actually attributable to the group’s pragmatic evolution. Hamas was able to exploit Fateh’s disunity, reputation for corruption, and inability to negotiate independence in a victory that has possibly weakened commitments within Hamas to its founding ideology.

However, after forming a government, Hamas fell victim to the same international forces that have drained Fateh of its credibility. The United States and the European Union requested that the government officially adopt the PLO’s platform (unilateral recognition of Israel, obey past PLO-Israel agreements, and adhere non-violence) before it could receive aid or partake in diplomatic relations.

After a year of deprivation and violence, between both Hamas and Fateh and with Israel, a unity government finally formed this past February with the help of Saudi Arabia’s mediation. This so-called Mecca Agreement grants Hamas nine ministers, to Fateh’s six, in a new cabinet that will staff the coveted interior, finance, and foreign ministerial portfolios with independents. The agreement also obliges Hamas to respect past PLO-Israel accords. These conditions are favorable to Hamas, and now thanks to a nonpartisan Saudi aid and renewed US and EU donations to Fateh ministries, Hamas will be the majority party in an operational new government. On top of that, it resisted international pressures and ultimately only had to publicly acknowledge what it had already done: decided to work within the institutions of the Palestinian Authority.

The Mecca Agreement is a good place to start in order to examine the regional implications of Hamas’ victory. While the most popular lens used to explain current Middle Eastern politics focuses on an allegedly expanding transnational Iranian influence, or a developing “Shia crescent,” the future of American imperialism in the region is probably just as much if not more threatened by the example of Hamas, a party with its origins in the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) that was able to unseat a US-Israeli ally, Fateh, in a democratic election. A similar situation exists across the border in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood holds 88 out of 454 seats in the parliament. The MB bloc, while too small to pass legislation, has according to an article in Middle East Report made a habit of “proactive study of political issues and use of parliamentary procedure to hold the government’s feet to the fire” thus transforming the group into “the nation’s only real political party.” This is occurring at time when the National Democratic Party (NDP), and the government it dominates, have become profoundly alienated from the Egyptian people. In one dramatic example, the government could only safely distribute frozen chickens to the homeless victims of a fire by dispatching them over a ten-foot gate.

The NDP’s internal problems should be coupled in an analysis with their foreign policy. When these elements are looked at together, they expose the precariousness of the NDP and American power in the Middle East. Cairo makes itself useful to the US by serving as an interlocutor for it and Arab governments. Both the US and Egypt believe that as the first Arab state to make peace with Israel and as a state that saw its lifeline extended by seeking rapprochement with Jerusalem and Washington, Egypt can guide and encourage other nations to follow its example. Furthermore, as a negotiator in intra-Arab disputes, Egypt can promote US interests. However, over the past year Egyptian mediation has failed to put an end to internal Palestinian violence, produce a PA government acceptable to the US and Israel, or free the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian militants last June. The NDP has persistently warned the US that it must do more to acknowledge Palestinian rights and assuage their grievances or face an intensifying regional instability. But this is not the role that the US wants its client to play. In short the emergence of Hamas and the Egyptian MB as viable parliamentary candidates is actively devaluing the NDP as an American ally.

Last year’s PA elections set off a chain of events that diminished Egyptian and Jordanian efficacy as mediators but enhanced Saudi Arabia’s international influence. The political impasse between Hamas and Fateh following the elections and the inflated fears of Iranian expansion into the Levant-Middle East drew Saudi Arabia further into Palestinian politics. Riyadh proved capable of using its wealth and influence to create a PA government that did not meet the expectations of the US, EU, or Israel but which the former two are forced to tolerate and work with albeit in a qualified way. Thus a declining American hegemony, marked by the degeneration of Fateh and the NDP, has allowed the Saudi’s increased leverage in the Levant.

This new influence extends not just over other Arabs but to the United States as well. As the only intermediary able to unify Fateh and Hamas, Saudi Arabia’s political goals in Palestine cannot be easily dismissed or opposed by anyone. Furthermore, as concern grows over Iranian influence projected through Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shia, and Hamas, Saudi Arabia’s image in Israel has been revised. For the reasons the kingdom was feared, its oil wealth, substantial military spending, Islamist identity, and close relationship with America, Saudi Arabia now appears as a useful ally against Iranian power.

In the wake of Hamas’ victory, when Iranian donations to the controversial new government received widespread media attention, conventional thinking incorporated these events into a pre-existing narrative of Iran’s regional ascendancy. But as with much of the commentary on the “Iranian threat” the fear of a Hamas-Iran alliance was overblown and the election and the events that followed weakened America’s hegemony in the region for reasons that have little to do with Iran. As of right now, the Palestinian-Saudi relationship dwarfs in monetary value and political import any relationship between Hamas and Tehran. What has happened in Palestine mirrors developments in Egypt.

America’s allies have spoiled their reputations and Islamist parties, by moving towards the center and by practicing honest government, are able to capitalize on these circumstances. At the risk of instability and state breakdown, these forces will have to be accommodated. That Hamas and the MB in Egypt have entered democratic process is of inestimable value to the Palestinians, Egyptians, and even to the United States. Their experiences as parliamentarians will prepare them with necessary skills in governance, promote political moderation, deepen their relationships with civil society, and introduce them to the contours of international politics. If the US insists that its allies remain in power and the Islamists be marginalized, the consequence is an erosion of the current officialdom and the institutions that can prepare the region and the world for a democratic co-existence of secular and religious parties.