The tally of Arab Spring winners and losers keeps changing in the Middle East, and it’s difficult to predict how the list will look when the revolutionary fervor dies down. There is one player, however, whose fortunes have eroded so dramatically as to bring into question whether it will survive as currently constituted.
Hamas, the Islamist militant branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that has governed the Palestinian Gaza Strip since it took control by force in 2007, suddenly finds itself against the ropes, struggling to remain viable and showing its increasing difficulties through actions that reek of desperation.
Hamas now faces a radically changed Middle East without friends or patrons, governing a population squeezed by events in Egypt and elsewhere in the region. Ironically, it’s not archfoe Israel that today poses the greatest threat to Hamas; rather, it is a series of decisions by the Hamas leadership, combined with forces of history over which it has little if any power, that has pushed the group to the brink.