Gazans are fed up with Hamas

When thousands of members of “The Young” movement marched last Thursday on the streets of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip, chanting the battle cry of the Tahrir Square, “Al sha'ab yureed iskat al-nizam” (the people want the fall of the regime), they attracted the attention of quite a few people in the Israeli defense establishment. There was a feeling that we are witnessing a rerun of the Arab Spring, threatening the Hamas regime this time.

This demonstration was the highlight of about 10 popular protests held in the strip in the past month, since the heavy cold wave began. It was the biggest popular protest since Hamas rose to power about 10 years ago, and it was held on the backdrop of the deteriorating living conditions. Palestinian journalists have been referring to this protest as ‘The Electricity Intifada,’ and it has already generated symbols: A Palestinian who set himself on fire in Jabalia outside the offices of a charity organization, and three babies who died of hypothermia.

Hamas panicked. While its leaders are used to periods of unrest among the public during the heavy cold of January and the heavy heat of August due to the lack of electricity, this year the protest took on dimensions which could have been interpreted as a revolt. Alarm bells began ringing in the region’s countries: For the first time, the potential of toppling the Hamas government from the inside was exposed.

Hamas leaders are weighing their options. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has been abroad for the past five months, and the local leadership was split between those who maintained that the protestors should be allowed to let off steam and cahnnel their anger towards the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, which is responsible for supplying diesel oil to the power station in Gaza, and those who argued that the protests should be forcibly oppressed immediately, so that the situation will not deteriorate into a “spring” akin to that of Tunisia and Egypt.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4909137,00.html