Internal Hamas correspondence intercepted by the Palestinian Authority
and obtained by Haaretz reveals a deep divide between the organization's
leadership abroad and its West Bank leadership, on the one hand, and the Gaza leadership on the other.

In the documents, the leadership abroad says it does not want "to control Gaza completely while losing the West Bank."

These leaders claim that Hamas in Gaza caused the reconciliation talks with Fatah that had been slated for Cairo to fail. The leaders abroad say their Gaza counterparts thwarted the chances for a Palestinian national unity government by their unwillingness to consider giving up control of the Strip and setting "impossible" conditions.

Hamas in the Gaza Strip is led by Mahmoud Zahar, Said Siyam, and Halil
al-Haya, while the leadership abroad is headed by the formerly dominant figure Khaled Meshal, head of the organization's political wing, and his deputy, Musa Abu-Marzuk.

Palestinian sources say Hamas in Gaza is demanding that its power in the organization's leadership body, the Shura, be increased from 34 percent to 51 percent. It cites its extensive control over the most important grassroots supporters, and the attempt by leaders abroad and in the West Bank to impose their will on Gaza.

The documents reveal that the leadership abroad - which includes Hamas'
representatives in Syria, Iran, Lebanon and elsewhere - and the leadership in the West Bank hope to impose a more moderate agenda on the organization in Gaza with respect to dialogue with Fatah.

A document sent on October 6 from Damascus to the Hamas leadership in the West Bank states that the Damascus leaders sense from meetings in Cairo with senior Gaza-Hamas officials that the latter do not want to pursue the dialogue with Fatah. Hamas canceled its participation in the Cairo talks a few days before they were to begin.

The document states: "We are including a document that includes all the
corrections of the brothers from Gaza to a document we sent them and you with regard to the dialogue. We in the political bureau [in Damascus] have studied the corrections of the brothers and we have a number of objections and comments that we will discuss when we see them [the Gazan leaders] ....

"But the most important thing ... is that the 'soul,' as we saw it, is not ready for dialogue and there are impossible conditions being made, and the split [the Hamas takeover of Gaza] has become serious and is not perceived as undesirable ....

"In addition is the situation in the West Bank and what we are exposed to in the bloody, ongoing operations [by the PA] intended to destroy the foundation [of Hamas] as revenge for what happened in Gaza. We must weigh this situation properly .... In short, we want to go to dialogue and we want this dialogue to succeed."

The document provides a rare glimpse into the way disputes are managed in the Hamas leadership. The Gaza leadership's takeover of the Hamas agenda can be said to be dictating more extreme positions not only vis-a-vis the PA, but also with regard to Israel. This is especially the case following the win in the organization's recent Gaza elections by Hamas' military wing, which opposes any long-term arrangement with Israel.

In the month before the opening of the talks that had been planned for earlier this month in Cairo, Hamas held discussions on the document the Egyptians had proposed on reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. The leadership abroad presented its objections to the document, with the goal of making them preconditions for the Hamas-Fatah summit.

The preliminary document includes proposals on issues like government posts, elections and the security forces. For example, the Hamas leadership in Gaza objects to the Damascus branch's proposal to allow PA President Mahmoud Abbas to continue in his post, which Fatah thinks he should hold until 2010. Hamas in Gaza believes it should end in 2009.