Can Hamas compromise?

Hamas’s claims of “victory” may strike many shell-shocked Gazans as otherworldly. Its leaders face a tough choice. They can settle for a controlled opening, perhaps under international inspection, that would hinder rearmament but relieve ordinary Gazans. Or they can keep trying to embarrass Egypt and to shoot at Israel, so as to keep the “resistance” alive.

A flurry of summit meetings followed the ceasefire on January 18th. While Qatar summoned Hamas figureheads and their backers, including Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to hail the resistance and demand an end to peace overtures to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia hosted counter-meetings to bolster Mr Abbas. At a later Arab summit that brought both lots together, a joint platform could not be agreed on, though King Abdullah, hoping to steer a middle course, declared that an Arab initiative to recognise Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank, which all the Arabs signed in 2002, could not stay on the table for ever.

In the meantime, moves to consolidate the ceasefire continued. Egypt hosted separate delegations from Israel and Hamas in a sign that, despite the opprobrium it has earned from many Arabs by its support for the blockade, Egypt still monopolises most channels of communication.

On his first day in office, Barack Obama telephoned Mr Abbas as well as Israel’s Ehud Olmert. His reported selection as Middle East envoy of George Mitchell, a former senator of part-Lebanese descent with experience as a peacemaker in Northern Ireland, was generally well-received. But no one thinks that trying to make peace between Palestinians themselves, let alone among Palestinians and Israelis, will be anything but gut-wrenching.

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