U.S. President Donald Trump last week breathed new life into Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, perhaps breathing new life into the entire, seemingly moribund, irrelevant and mostly futureless PA. Encouraged and bolstered by the hug he received from Washington, Abbas returned to Ramallah and expectedly unleashed a frontal attack on Hamas, threatening to strike at the terrorist organization's soft underbelly -- the monthly wages and monetary transfers from Ramallah to Gaza that allow Hamas to maintain control there. Economic collapse in Gaza could, of course, lead to a new round of fighting between Hamas and Israel, but Abbas would be watching it from the sidelines. This weekend, Hamas gave its answer. The group's leadership elected Ismail Haniyeh as next political bureau chief, replacing Khaled Mashaal, who is resigning after 21 years at the helm. The Gaza-born Haniyeh, who still lives in the same refugee camp he was born in, has led the Hamas government in Gaza ever since the group took the coastal enclave by force around a decade ago. Now, if the Egyptians even let him leave the Strip, he will move to a suite in one of Qatar's most luxurious hotels, from where Hamas manages its daily affairs and fund raising for its Gaza project. But with all due respect to Haniyeh's election, Hamas already has a leader with the authority to rule. If he wants, he will drag Gaza into a fight with Israel; if he doesn't want a fight, he will preserve the relative calm along the border. This person, of course, is Yahya Sinwar, who several months ago replaced Haniyeh as Hamas' leader inside Gaza. His uniqueness, as opposed to Haniyeh and even Mashaal, lies in the fact that he rose from the ranks of the organization's military wing, which he continues to lead to this day. Even when Haniyeh was head of the Hamas government in Gaza, the military wing held the real power. All pretenses were erased after Sinwar was elected. Sinwar, we can assume, will pay respect to whoever gives him the dollars to maintain his armed force, manufacture missiles and dig tunnels, but Haniyeh's move to Qatar will also solidify his rule even further. Haniyeh's election does not move the needle for better or worse and therefore will not change Hamas' conduct, not in Gaza and not outside it. With that, his election expresses the movement's recognition of the hardships it currently faces. The fact that a Gaza native was chosen as leader indicates that Hamas, which itself was born in Gaza in the days of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, is downsizing and withdrawing to its original borders. The organization is losing power and influence to more radical Salafist elements in Syria and Lebanon. In Judea and Samaria, meanwhile, Israel is not allowing Hamas to rear its head. But in Gaza, too, the group's status is in peril in light of the tightening noose -- Israel from one side, Abbas from the other, and of course Egypt, which is closing the Strip off from the south. During Mashaal's tenure, Hamas was able to rise to power in Gaza. This was less because of him and more a result of the PA's failures and mistakes by the Israeli government and American administration. We must now wait and see whether Hamas, under the stewardship of native Gaza son Haniyeh, will lose its status in the Arab world as the only religious organization in a position of governance and control.
