Optimism is a wonderfully emotive quality, and particularly in respect of the new Israeli/Gaza/Palestinian dynamic, it is reassuring given wider humanitarian perspectives, and with global peace now just a little more realistic.
However, the will of the two key authorities, the Israeli government and Hamas, cannot be seen as a panacea for all ills, and concern has already been expressed by several regional experts as to the fragility of the peace agreement in the face of tribal influences that have traditionally proven averse to governance.
The main tribal groups, Azazma, Hayawat, Ijbara, Jahalin, Tarabeen and Tayaha, are no longer prepared to be seen as anachronisms, largely suppressed by Hamas for the last two decades, but as strong, vibrant, diverse cultures, established within honour systems, made stronger through historic deeds and long-held tradition, with proud, dominant ancestry. Any allusion to a peace that ignores these values will surely be seen as illusory.
Any definition of tribalism would allude to the prioritisation of genealogical imperatives and a rejection of external governance as alien to their ways of life. In fact, it has been these tribal entities that have maintained most of what community has remained during the conflict, and the delivery of what remains of support services, in this strife-torn region.
So, are they a part of the consultative and regenerative process at the beginning of what is a unique peace process? If not, its resilience may be compromised from the outset. Certainly, research analyst Giuseppe Pezulli contends that the creation of a “foreign-backed authority, even by another Arab state,” would offer “not peace, but subjugation,” as tribal exclusion would appear to them as ‘just another form of dictatorship.’ The largest of the Gaza paramilitary forces is the 30,000 soldiers of the Izz Al Din Al Qassam Brigade. However, given that they are the military arm of the Hamas group, one would hope that their role in the near future would follow community policing priorities. On the other hand, it is difficult to envisage such a role for the 11,000 devotees of Saraya Al Quds, the Palestinian IJ, and further, quite how the Al Nasser Brigade, the Abu Ali Mustafa and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade will fit into the new peace.
Among the warlords who will certainly challenge the peace accord is Yasser Abu Shahab, a convicted and jailed drug dealer, with a record that has extended to looting foreign aid, hijacking fuel trucks and wanton violence.
Another is Shadi al Soufi, who was convicted in 2020 for the murder of PLFP spokesman Jabr Al Qeeq, reportedly in revenge for the killing of Al Soufi’s father. The warlord escaped custody late in that year, but returned to Gaza during the conflict, and has achieved significant notoriety in a short time.
It’s clear that in the absence of effective civil administration, powerful armed groups will have an opportunity to become as in strife-torn Central Africa where ‘pseudo-armies’ rule, in the Balkan States where heavily armed paramilitary strongmen assumed control in a power vacuum, or in Haiti where the ‘rule of the gun’ is total, the harder it may be to dislodge them.
Seth Frantzman wrote during 2024 that, “Tribes and clans can help with local governance, but they have spent hundreds of years reading which way the wind blows, and making the complex choices that locals have to make in a region where locals are often abandoned to the whims of various regimes and groups.”
I, like most folk, want so badly to be proven wrong, to have been a scaremonger, but if there is one thing seven decades have taught me, it is that roads paved with good intentions tend to offer an uncomfortable ride.
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