Hamas’s security forces remain strong and in full control, while more extreme Islamist challengers are gaining influence because of an Israeli embargo that has done more to frustrate the population than to weaken Hamas’s grip, analysts say. ~The Washington Post

The article goes on to say that Israel wanted to “wait and see whether Gaza’s residents would rise up and force Hamas out.” One might conclude from this that Israel would end the blockade once it realizes that this is never going to happen, but that would be wrong. The trouble with this wait-and-see approach to regime change is that there is no obvious end to it. If Gazans haven’t overthrown Hamas yet, just wait a few more years and see what happens. A few more years becomes a decade, and then two decades, and in the end the blockade becomes essentially a permanent feature. Even if Hamas is eventually overthrown by people in Gaza, it will likely be by a more radical faction that comes to see Hamas as corrupt and ineffective, much as Hamas saw Fatah, and the rise of that faction will provide new justification for continuing the blockade.

There is a certain perverse logic to all of this. The misery, poverty and hopelessness created by a virtually stagnant private economy in a densely-populated, isolated enclave radicalizes the population even more, but more than that it deprives them of the incentive to turn against their own leadership and it makes them incapable of organizing effective resistance against the local regime. Everything about the blockade ensures that the political conditions in Gaza can only get worse, but lifting the blockade depends on the improvement of those conditions. Sometimes critics will refer to Gaza as an “open-air prison,” but the remarkable thing about the situation is that Israel and Hamas effectively collaborate as the jailors of the civilian population: Israel hems them in and controls their access to the outside world, and Hamas runs internal security to keep the population under their control. Officially, Israel claims that it wants a prison riot to break out, but by their actions the Israeli government seems satisfied to bring about a very different outcome.

The Post article continues:

Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East analyst for the CIA who is now with the Brookings Institution in Washington, said he has no doubt that “Hamas now faces a much bigger threat from the extreme jihadists sympathetic to al-Qaeda” than from Fatah, which controls the West Bank. Al-Qaeda sympathizers appeal to Hamas’s core constituency “of militants who want to fight Israel, not live in a cease-fire and under blockade. They are frustrated that Hamas won’t allow [rocket] attacks or attempts to kidnap more Israelis [bold mine-DL]. Hamas has the upper hand for now because it has more force and is ruthless in using it, but the long trend is worrisome.”

The standard line we hear in defense of the blockade is that it is necessary to prevent Hamas from attacking Israel. The analysis in the article suggests that the blockade is actually making future attacks more likely by encouraging more radical groups to challenge Hamas on account of its apparent lack of militancy. The cease-fire is holding, but the blockade is still being enforced rigorously. The tightness of the blockade seems to have no relationship to security conditions. Under these conditions, Hamas appears unduly weak and conciliatory. To the extent that there are any political forces opposed to Hamas in Gaza, they are even more implacable and uncompromising, and the blockade is slowly making them stronger.