Hamas has kept a pretty low profile in the West Bank recently–when will that change?

According to recent polls in both Israel and the West Bank, both Israeli and Palestinian populations are looking to see Hamas step up to the plate in negotiations. But that might not be enough to make Hamas willing to resurface in the West Bank just yet.

Two days ago, the Israel Dialogue Institute released a poll saying that over half of the Israeli public wants to see Hamas brought into negotiations if it recognized Israel (See Reuters’ story here).

A Ha’aretz article said, “it turns out that the majority of the public - 57% - supports the view of (Knesset member) Shaul Mofaz of (Israeli centrist party) Kadima, who published a plan earlier this week, in which he called for dialogue with Hamas under certain conditions. Inside Kadima the idea has tremendous support by some 72 percent of the party’s voters.”

Even more surprising is that among supporters of Likud, Israel’s right-wing political party, 53%  of the public approved of negotiating with Hamas.

But according to a recent report in the Carnegie Endowment’s Arab Reform Bulletin, Hamas plans to keep lying low in the midst of the West Bank political storm between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American negotiators (original Arabic here).

“Hamas has also gone to ground on the West Bank because it is convinced that the current situation will eventually redound to its benefit,” says Palestinian writer Omran al-Risheq–especially given Abbas’ refusal to restart peace talks with Israel, the US reluctance to demand a total settlement freeze, and Abbas’ recent announcements that he won’t run for re-election. (Read Reuters’ latest story here.)

Palestinians, it seems, may be more divided than Israelis about their interest in seeing Hamas rebound in the political arena.  Al-Risheq says that recent opinion polls show Hamas as increasingly popular in the West Bank at the same time that it’s reputation is plummeting in Gaza.

“West Bank Palestinians view Hamas as symbol of resistance to Israeli and U.S. domination, whereas Gazans –who have had a chance to test governance by Hamas –see its performance as similar to, if not worse than, that of the corrupt PA leadership (led by the Palestinian Fatah party).”

Rivalry between Islamist Hamas and the Western-backed Fatah movement grew after Hamas won a 2006 parliamentary election. The rift deepened in 2007 when Hamas forces wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Ultimately, al-Risheq argues, Hamas thinks that the longer it waits in silence, the better chance it has of seeing conditions turn in its interest: from seeing the complete collapse of the Palestinian Authority, where Hamas can become the feasible alternative, or to an Egyptian-brokered Palestinian election in June 2010, where Hamas can garner popularity by successfully doing a prisoners exchange with Israel.

Do you think Hamas can wait out the storm, or will it have to act soon?

PHOTO: Hamas police officers march in front of Yasser Arafat billboard. Gaza city, 25 Oct 2009. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Palestinian reconciliation efforts suffered another setback when President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree for presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 24, a move that was rejected by the Islamist group Hamas. Egypt has been mediating for over a year to heal the split between Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas but the two rivals have continuously failed to reach a unity agreement. (Read our Q&A to understand why the two Palestinian factions fail to reach an agreement on Cairo’s latest proposal.) Most Palestinians believe a unity deal is crucial to achieving Palestinian statehood but don’t think an agreement is likely. However, the rare case of successful Fatah-Hamas partnership in the West Bank village of Beita might convince them otherwise.

Elected leaders of this town come from different backgrounds and political affiliations but all serve on the same council, working in synergy to build a robust independently-funded infrastructure – a rarity in the Palestinian territories.

In the 2004 municipal elections, Beita village produced an 11-member council comprised of 6 Hamas and 5 Fatah members, with Sheikh Arab from Hamas as mayor. Shortly after the elections, Sheikh Arab joined forces with Abu Haitham, a former mayor of 8 years who had headed the Fatah ballot list, and together they worked to start building what they call ‘Little Palestine’.

“We asked ourselves this question, ‘Why did we come to this council?’ and all 11 members answered: ‘We came here for the good of the town,’” Sheikh Arab told Reuters. “We cooperate on what we agree and we pardon one another on issues we do not agree. We try to pretend as if Beita is Little Palestine with all of its problems - political, social, economic, and security issues.”

Like most Hamas leaders in the West Bank, Sheikh Arab was arrested by Palestinian forces loyal to Abbas in 2007, the year Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah. He was released in 2009 and now serves as deputy to the current mayor, Abu Muhanad, a Fatah member who last held the post while Sheikh Arab was in detention.

“Outside the walls of this municipality, I am still Fatah and defend Fatah, and he is Hamas and defends Hamas. But we defend the right things and what is wrong on what we all agree is wrong,”  Abu Muhanad said about his relationship with his deputy mayor.

Unity and cooperation within the leadership isn’t the town’s only achievement, said Abu Haitham, the former mayor who oversees various investments and development projects. “On top of the slogan to have unity and cooperation, we have adopted another principle and that is how to move from relief to development. In this respect, we concentrated on investments and how to rely on our income,” he said.

Unlike neighbouring municipalities which rely heavily on foreign aid, Beita Municipal Council generates profit from its sustainable local development projects funded entirely by private investors from the village and by Palestinian expatriates. A factory for the high-end mineral water bottling company Yanabee gives 35 percent of its profit to the municipality, allowing the council to be self-sufficient and avoid taking orders from foreign donors on how funds should be used.

Other locally-funded projects include an infrastructure connecting most of Beita to water and electricity, a flea market where produce is sold in bulk and a housing project on a hill top near the Jewish settlement Itamar.

Another project or two and Beita will be completely independent and self-sufficient, the council says.

“We are an organisation that carries out services. When we sit around the table, we are supposed to find the grounds on which we can achieve whatever we can for our country. This is why we have harmony — not to forget, we are cousins,” said the current mayor, Abu Muhanad.

“My brother and I are in the same municipality council: my brother is Hamas and I am Fatah, what do you want us to start with one another now?” Abu Muhanad said with a smile.

Click below to watch our visit to Beita and our interviews with the village’s three mayors on October 21, 2009:

PHOTO: A Palestinian Fatah supporter gestures behind a Palestinian flag during a rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah against Israel’s offensive in Gaza and in support of President Mahmoud Abbas January 19, 2009. REUTERS/Fadi Arouri (WEST BANK)

A youth group in the Gaza Strip held a mock trial for the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. The Youth Parliament, a group under the media department of the Islamist group Hamas, prosecuted Abbas on charge of “betraying the blood of the martyrs and the injured”.

The charge was in reference to Abbas’s agreement to defer the vote on the Goldstone Report at the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this month. Many human rights groups have been pressing nations to endorse the UN report critical of the Gaza War seeing it as a way to hold both Israel and Hamas accountable for the hundreds of civilian deaths in the devastating war. The vote on the Goldstone Report was delayed to next March, which looked like a victory for Israel, and some Palestinians charged his decision had raised serious questions about Abbas’s leadership. Abbas, doing some damage control, pledged to push for an exceptional UNHCR session, which is being held on Wednesday. (Read more here.)

A panel of three teen judges presided over this trial held at the Hamas media offices in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip. A man with a similar physique as the Palestinian Authority president acted the part of the defendant, wearing a mask with a picture of Abbas’s face, standing handcuffed and chained at the ankles throughout the trial. He also mimicked Abbas’s accent and intonation.

The prosecutor’s opening statement was followed by testimonies from a human rights group representative, an Arab League representative, Abbas’s defense lawyer, and Mahmoud Abbas “himself”. A young girl, representative of “the children of Palestine”, claiming to have come straight from school to testify against the “traitor”, spoke as a “witness to the crimes committed against the children”.

Abbas was unsurprisingly found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. His personal property is also to be seized for public use, the mock verdict said.

The Parliament is comprised of 50 girls and boys under the age of 18. It has already “tried” several politicians: former U.S. President George W. Bush towards the end of his term and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shortly before he fell ill a few years ago.

Palestinian children in Gaza received a very special treat today. They had the opportunity to see a zebra in flesh. Well, a “zebra”.

A small Gaza zoo dyed two female donkeys white and striped the two using women’s hair-dye and a paint brush. It charged $15 for a full busload of children to meet the zebras - a bargain for an animal that would have cost $40,000 to bring to the Israel-blockaded Gaza.

In Arabic the word for zebra literally means ‘a wild donkey’, so maybe these donkeys weren’t too far off.

Click below to judge the dye job for yourself:

PHOTO: Palestinian boys ride dyed donkeys at Marah Land zoo in Gaza City October 8, 2009. REUTERS/Mohammed Sale

The fifth annual Palestinian Oktoberfest was held on October 3rd and 4th, at the mainly Christian town of Taybeh, West Bank. Located several kilometers north of Ramallah, Taybeh, is home to the first and only Palestinian beer - Taybeh Beer. Established in 1995, Taybeh Beer can also be found abroad, being sold and distributed in Germany, the United Kingdom and even Japan.

The two-day beer festival celebrates the town’s now famed beverage and markets other local Palestinian products such as olive oil, honey, and embroidery to international visitors, as an effort to boost the Palestinian economy.

This year’s Oktoberfest boasted a diverse program featuring Brazilian and Greek bands and traditional Japanese dancers. Organizers expected more than 10,000 visitors, a new record.

But what truly marks this Oktoberfest is that this year’s is the first to serve Taybeh beer’s new non-alcoholic line: Taybeh Halal, launched this year.

To beer enthusiasts and/or beer purists, serving the non-alcoholic kind at an Oktoberfest may sound sacrilegious. At an Oktoberfest in the West Bank where Muslims form the majority, however, having Taybeh Halal could address a wider clientele for those banned by religion from drinking alcohol.

Nadim Canaan Khoury, the Christian owner of the Taybeh Brewery, began preparing for the alcohol-free beer immediately after Hamas Islamists’ landslide win in the January 2006 parliamentary election. He changed the trademark gold bottle labels to green, the colour of Islam, for the non-alcoholic version. Khoury has not officially been approached by Hamas, but according to a Hamas official Taybeh Halal is just not enough.

In a heated debate on the BBC Arabic TV channel, aired on the opening night of the Taybeh Oktoberfest, a Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri called Palestinian Authority Economy Minister Bassem Khoury’s government ”alcoholic”. Masri argued that brewing was illegal in the Palestinian territories, though that is not an interpretation widely understood outside of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Minister Khoury retaliated and spoke of economic benefits that Taybeh Beer, as an important export, offers Palestinians.

Nadim Khoury told Reuters he had not seen the debate but said “Hamas can say whatever they want”.

“I make a living brewing beer, I am proud of it, and I will continue doing it,” he added.

Taybeh Halal was originally scheduled to launch in mid-2007 but it did not debut until July of this year. Why the delay? “It’s extremely hard to find a way to make tasty non-alcoholic beer at a microbrewery,” said Khoury.

With his encouragement, I gave Taybeh Halal a try.  But, hm. I think I’ll stick to the original for now.

(Read the English transcript of Shalit’s video message here.)

It’s been two days since the exchange of the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit’s proof-of-life video for Israel’s release of 20 Palestinian female prisoners. The final prisoner of the 20 was freed today as the last step to the soldier-video swap.

After being made public, the video has been replayed nonstop on television, radio, and video web-hosting sites. As of Monday, the endless number of video uploads by individual users on Youtube had each been viewed over at least 40,000 times.

Israeli newspapers Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv dedicated more than half of their pages to the Shalit video. Under the headlines “Broken Smile” and “May I fulfill my dream of going free, at last”, the newspapers’ extensive coverage ranged from an analysis by former prisoners of war, emotional comments by the Shalit family, to piercing commentaries on “how Israel has failed its son, Gilad”.

There have been conflicting reports on the significance of Friday’s exchange and the prospects of Shalit’s release and Israelis and the Hamas reaching a deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was encouraged by the video and President Shimon Peres said, “The tape is an important step, but there is still a long way to go”. Israeli media quoted one Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip said reaching a deal is “a matter of weeks, or at the most – months”. Father of the captive soldier Noam Shalit expressed fear that negotiations might take years.

Looking at the recent swap, Newsweek’s Adam B. Kushner wondered how much “mere proof of life” is worth. According to Kushner, analysts argue that these swaps could encourage more attempts to capture soldiers because the return or the “exchange rate” is very high as long as they seize “somebody valuable enough” - enough to make Israelis want to trade.

The free Shalit campaign has launched a new slogan, “Bibi you can do it, finish the job”. The question is, how much is the Israeli public willing to concede for Bibi — Benjamin Netanyahu — to “finish the job”?

Read our TIMELINE of events since Shalit’s capture.

Last week: Sunday - clashes in the Old City of Jerusalem which to some resemble the events that led to the outbreak of the Second Intifada nine years ago; Tuesday - shooting by Palestinians wounds an Israeli motorist in the West Bank; Wednesday - an Israeli Army jeep hitting and killing a 17-year-old Palestinian. (Read more about the September 27th, 2009 clashes here.)

This week: Sunday again - hundreds of Arabs clash again with police in the Old City of Jerusalem. Police briefly block all access to the  al-Aqsa mosque compound.

At the rate things have been going, expecting another act of violence to follow might be the next logical step.

But, looking largely at last week’s Jerusalem clashes, a commentary in the Jerusalem Post, posed an interesting question: Do recent acts of violence portend worse violence? The Jerusalem Post answered No.

Our analysis of the recent violence also shows that talk of a Third Intifada seems premature to most Palestinians. But don’t be too optimistic though, says Zakaria al-Qaq of al-Quds University, as there exists Palestinian discontent with the new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and policies that include settlement growth.

Do you think worse violence is possible in Israel and the Palestinian territories?

Read our FACTBOX on five risks to watch out for in the Middle East.

Click below for a video of last week’s clashes at the Jerusalem holy site:

Click below for a video of arrests after last week’s clashes:

(PHOTO: A Palestinian woman holds the Koran during a demonstration in solidarity with al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, organized by the Hamas movement in Gaza City September 28, 2009. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem.)

According to International Peace Institute’s (IPI) new poll conducted in both Hamas-ruled Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank administered by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement, Palestinians still offer substantial support for the Islamist Hamas group for being “the party of resistance”.

IPI said 55 percent of Palestinians favor a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, which shows a shift in Palestinian public opinion towards greater willingness to accept “the overall package and of provisions for Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian demilitarization, and mutual recognition.”

So, most Palestinians want a state of their own through a peace deal with Israel. But at the same time, a significant percentage back Hamas which refuses to recognise Israel and will only consider a long-term truce, not a peace treaty creating two states.  Elections are due next year and if this poll is right, Fatah will win but hardly by a landslide.

It shows Palestinians are still ambivalent about their choice of leadership. Poll results show Abbas winning a head-to-head election against Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh with 52 percent, which it calls a “narrow margin”.

Click below to see a massive Hamas rally celebrating the Islamist group’s 21st anniversary on December 14, 2008:

(PHOTO: Palestinians take part in a Hamas rally to mark the 61st anniversary of Nakba in the northern Gaza Strip May 15, 2009. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem.)

Coming home on Sunday after a long day at work, there was still no rest. Several of my neighbours in Gaza were escaping the late evening heat of their apartments to sit outside our building chatting about the previous two days that had seen the bloodiest inter-Palestinian fighting in two years, between forces of the Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza and gunmen of an al Qaeda-style group. It left 28 people dead.

Knowing I’ma journalist, and discovering that I had been at the scene of the clashes, down in the south of the Gaza Strip at Rafah, the neighbours started bombarding me with their questions. Most of them were confused about what exactly happened between these two groups, which both endorse Islam as a political ideology.

Some of them asked whether the clashes would have a backlash and whether they should keep a distance from Hamas police stations and even restaurants to avoid being blown up by followers of the Jund Ansar Allah (the Warriors of God), whose leader had been killed in the fighting with Hamas security forces.

Most of the neighbors did not condone the radical splinter group’s support of the use of force to impose Islamic law on Gaza’s community of 1.5 million people, nearly all of whom are Muslim. But some were confused over the religious implications of such clashes with Hamas, which also sees itself as a guardian of Islamic orthodoxy.

“Killing in the name of Islam?” said Mustafa, one of my neighbours, reflecting on the clash of two groups both sure of their beliefs. “But who among the dead will go to heaven and who to hell? Who was the good guy and who was the evil one?”

“Those wanted to establish an emirate,” said Abu Hassan, referring to Jund Ansar Allah. “Do you know what that means? Like the Taliban in Afghanistan. That means American warships will sail to Gaza.”

Others complained that Hamas itself sometimes seemed no less extreme in its religious views than these small, al Qaeda-like groups. They cited a recent campaign by Hamas’s religious affairs ministry in Gaza to encourage women to wear headscarves and adhere to Islamic values. “Hamas police are stopping couples walking in streets and checking their IDs,” one of the neighbours complained. “Am I supposed to carry around my marriage certificate whenever I go out with my wife?”

As a reporter, I tried to listen more than talk, and my answers to their questions were mostly similar to the various stories we wrote during the day. For an even more detailed view of the challenge to Hamas from al Qaeda-aligned Jihadists, and an insight into the details of their different brands of political Islam, I’d recommend this recent research report by Are Hovdenak of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.

I am struck, though, by how this sudden, complex and bloody controversy has become the talk of ordinary Gazans, some of whom seem unsure where their sympathies, or their duty as Muslims, should lie. It seems for now an inexhaustible source of conversation.

Running to the lift as it suddenly came to life after a typical hours-long power cut, I got away from my inquisitive neighbours and gratefully went up to my floor and opened my apartment door, looking forward to a rest.

“So,” asked my wife, “What really happened down in Rafah…?”

Apart from the first shipment of cement this week, only a few goods trickle in to Gaza through checkpoints.

Gazans manage by taking advantage of the few things that are readily available–smuggling tunnels and their own ingenuity,  both for better and worse. Here are a couple of the most notable stories I’ve seen this week on how the people of Gaza are carrying on these days.

An article from Ha’aretz today highlights a few of Gaza’s efforts to thrive despite its lockdown conditions. The situation has created a new class of “nouveaux riches of Gaza,” by those who open up new tunnels for smuggling.

Ha’aretz also highlighted potential efforts by Hamas to produce its own weapons since their smuggling channels got choked off : “Technical experts in Israel are divided over whether Hamas can meet this challenge, although its desire to do so is not in question”

Some adaptations are more exploitative. An op-ed by Muhammad Albaba, in the Palestinian paper Al-Ayyam, skewers Gazan vendors who are jacking up prices, not only for smuggled goods, but even goods that are passed  through checkpoints and should not have a price change: “‘It’s the tunnels, sir’–The phrase has become an excuse for raising prices without regulation, and exploiting others with this pretext for their opportunism.” Even goods going through the checkpoint are doubled in price, he says.

Meanwhile, recent entries from the Palestinian blog Kabobfest offer a more comedic take on Gazan adaptations to difficult living conditions under the blockade.  My personal favorite is the do-it yourself argilah (water pipe) guide. It suggests using items no longer of any use under blockade conditions: tea kettles, shower hoses, and stove heads.

Shower hoses, apparently, make a decent argileh hose subsitute: “Who are you kidding, there is barely enough water to drink, so showers are on hold for the time being, let’s use this hose that will not be supplying water to your shower head any time soon.” Step by step instructions, and a picture of the final product, can be seen here.

PHOTOS: Top Left: Smuggling tunnel in Rafah. January 22, 2009. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa. Bottom Right: Smoking a water pipe in Gaza city. Jan 20, 2007. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem.