Hamas Prime Minister in the Gaza Strip Ismail Haniyeh has sought to make his visit to Cairo to congratulate Egypt's new President Mohamed Morsi a “historical event" – this on the basis that the government headed by Haniyeh is issued from an Islamist movement with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the original movement in Egypt. Haniyeh considered, a few days before the visit and in his Friday sermon, this visit and his meeting with Morsi to represent no less than “open[ing] the path to the restoration of the Caliphate" in all Muslim countries. In other words, he assumed, in advance, that Morsi, as a member of the Brotherhood, would in effect fall in line with the delusion of the ideology promoted by Hamas in Gaza. Of course, the actual visit took on a completely different form. Indeed, the discussion of practical matters took place solely with the head of Egyptian intelligence Major General Murad Wafi, while the discussion with Morsi was limited to matters of protocol. Thus Haniyeh returned to Gaza with promises of alleviating the suffering of its besieged inhabitants and of meeting some of the demands connected to border crossings and visas for Palestinians – instead of returning armed with the “restoration of the Caliphate" he had promised a few days before the visit. Such contradiction between the goal set for the visit and its actual outcome reveals the core problem suffered by Hamas in the Gaza Strip at the ideological, political and administrative levels. Indeed, one must consider that the “Caliphate", which had once been a frame of reference for Muslims in a unified territory, ended about a century ago when the countries that formed such a territory obtained their independence and became states with their own rulers, constitutions and laws. In spite of this, ideological fervor overcomes Haniyeh in his Friday sermon, and thus he does not restrict himself to demanding its establishment, but in fact considers it to have been achieved. This is at a time when he is taking exceptional care to cling to his rule over Gaza, rejecting any serious course of action to achieve reconciliation in the Palestinian homeland. How then could one who cannot reach an understanding with the citizens of his own occupied homeland accept to be part of the new “Caliphate"? At the political level, Haniyeh interpreted in an ideological manner the fact that a member of the Muslim Brotherhood had reached the presidency in Egypt. He thus considered that ideological proximity alone would allow him to obtain from Egypt everything that would agree with his control over the Gaza Strip. He did not take into consideration the complications of Egypt's situation and the relationship between the new presidency and the military institution, which at the end of day will submit to the commitments of the Egyptian state. If one were to return to the closing statement issued by Haniyeh's office on the visit, one can divine that there was someone who gave him lessons on the necessity of separating ideology from reality, and the “Caliphate" from border crossings. Such a person is most likely Egypt's Major General Wafi, who realizes the significance of the Egyptian state's commitments. Thus Haniyeh's demands have been reduced in this statement, with instead a focus on the two issues that matter to Egypt at the moment – the first being security in the Sinai, whether in terms of harboring Egyptian fugitives in Gaza or in terms of tunnels, and the second submitting to Egypt's demand of a return to discussing Palestinian reconciliation by committing to not establishing a distinct entity in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the Egyptian presidency for its part lowered the meeting from the level of “restoration of the Caliphate" to that of the reality that it represents a continuation of past Egyptian-Palestinian meetings within the framework of Cairo's role in efforts towards reconciliation – a role which Egypt had assumed with Arab and international consensus under the former regime. And it seems that it continues to play such a role within the framework of the same outlook on the issue of reconciliation, i.e. of remaining at an equal distance from the two Palestinian sides in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. As for the measures promised by Egypt on border crossings to facilitate the movement of Palestinians in Gaza, they do not include anything new politically, and have been restricted to the technical aspect, which shows no actual change in this issue. Haniyeh and his movement were once, and under past regional circumstances that have changed today, able to impose a certain vision by the force of arms and threats in Gaza. And perhaps he assumed that the mere fact of Morsi reaching the presidency could lead to a situation in Egypt similar to that of Gaza. Yet Egypt has preserved, by virtue of the current domestic balance of power within it, the continuity of its policy as a state on the Palestinian issue, making the delusion of a “Caliphate" turn into technical measures to be taken on border crossings.
