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patrick martin

Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, is reeling from a series of setbacks that have dogged the Palestinian movement in the past few months. In the latest, and potentially the most damaging incident, a new organization, claiming to represent hundreds of thousands of Gazans, is threatening to stage an unprecedented march protesting the Hamas government's repressive practices.

It's been quite a turnaround for Gaza's rulers. Less than a year ago Hamas, an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, thought it was on top of the world.

It had emerged relatively unscathed from eight days of missile exchanges with Israel in November. While Ahmed Jabari, the leader of Hamas's military wing, had been killed in the initial attack by Israel, the group had used many of the long-range Iranian and Russian rockets that Mr. Jabari had acquired, firing on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. To be sure, the Israelis' Iron Dome defence system downed many of the missiles, but the sight of rockets descending on the country's two principal cities struck fear in Israelis, probably for the first time since 2005, when Hamas still was carrying out suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

From Hamas's point of view, one of the best things about the conflict was that the ceasefire with Israel was negotiated by a representative of Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, a fellow member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Indeed, things never had looked better for the Muslim Brotherhood in the region: It was in power in Egypt and Tunisia; while in Syria, the Brotherhood was leading the rebel forces. It had weathered the worst crackdowns by the regime and appeared to have Bashar al-Assad's army on the run.

It was the vicious crackdowns against fellow Brothers that led Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to desert his Damascus ally, Mr. Assad, earlier last year and close the headquarters the group had maintained in the Syrian capital since 2001. Turning his back on Syria, and also on Iran that funded both Damascus and Hamas, Mr. Meshaal moved operations to Qatar, the wealthy Gulf state that was funding Brotherhood battles around the region. The move looked good last winter, with Hamas basking in the support of the Emir of Qatar, and aligning itself with the Islamist administrations of Turkey and Egypt.

Under Mr. Morsi's rule in Egypt, the border crossing with Gaza was opened and people and goods flowed in and out relatively freely. Mr. Meshaal was able to visit the Gaza Strip for the first time; even Hamas's benefactor, the Emir of Qatar came to call.

But, it was too good to be true for long.

In quick succession, Mr. Assad turned the tables on the rebels in Syria, Qatar's emir abdicated and Hamas found that his son, the new Emir, doesn't have the same attachment to the Palestinian group. In Egypt, the Muslim Brother Morsi was ousted from the presidential palace and the Egypt-Gaza border was closed. Hundreds of tunnels that Gazans had dug under the border were destroyed by the new Egyptian military authorities so there would be no more importing of food, luxuries and weapons via the underground networks.

Even a massive Hamas tunnel under the border with Israel was recently discovered and closed by the Israelis. Running 2.5 km and using some 800 tonnes of concrete to shore up its walls, the tunnel was intended to allow Hamas fighters to infiltrate behind the lines of the Jewish state. Israel has now halted all shipments of building materials into Gaza.

As a further sign of the times, Iran's recently-elected President, Hassan Rouhani, is being courted by the United States and others in the West, while Hamas is on the outside looking in.

This week, Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas figure, revealed that a secret Hamas mission recently visited Tehran in an effort to restore Hamas's relations with Iran. The group got a positive reception, Mr. Yousef said, but a formal visit by Hamas leader Mr. Meshaal would have to wait, the Iranians insisted.

To top it all off, a youth movement has been formed in Gaza, modeled after the organization in Egypt earlier this year that gathered millions of signatures on a petition calling for the removal of Mr. Morsi from office and led massive marches that showed the scale of popular disenchantment with Egypt's Islamist administration. The Gaza group even is using the same name: Tamarod, and claims to have gathered 600,000 signatures of support – a third of the population of 1.8 million. It has set Nov. 11, the anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, as the day for Gazans to take to the streets in opposition to their rulers.

In a speech Oct. 19, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas's government in Gaza, addressed the new threat. He said the Egyptian model could not be cloned in Gaza.

But Mr. Haniya knows firsthand that it was the youths of Gaza whose marches against Israeli occupation in 1987 led to Hamas's own creation. And it is the young people in Gaza who could very well prove to be the movement's undoing.

In his speech, Mr. Haniya also reached out to the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Ironically, it was against this leadership that Hamas rebelled in 2007, taking control of Gaza in the process. Now Mr. Abbas may prove to be the Islamic group's salvation. Last year, in Doha, the two parties signed an agreement to reconcile, but nothing has been done to implement it.

President Abbas is currently in peace negotiations with Israel. They are being kept under wraps and it is unclear how they are progressing. But it is quite clear that Mr. Abbas's hand would be strengthened by a merger with Hamas – he would then be able to say he represents all Palestinians.

But while Mr. Abbas would like Hamas inside his tent, he wants them only on his terms: with an apology for the rebellion of 2007 and the reinstatement of PA officials and security forces in Gaza.

The light at the end of Hamas's tunnel grows dimmer.

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