9 - From Strife to the Arab Spring

Summary

This chapter consists of three sections. I begin by analyzing how PIJ navigated once strife erupted between Fatah and Hamas in 2007, and how the movement resorted to dialogue and negotiations in attempts to de-escalate the conflict. I proceed in the second section to see how these attempts to preserve unity were abandoned on the ground once Hamas attempted to establish law and order in Gaza, which led to violent clashes between it and PIJ. I discuss in the last section how PIJ navigated regionally with the eruption of the Arab Spring. We see that although PIJ is ideologically resistant to the Arab regimes and a supporter of the Arab Spring, the necessity of not alienating its patrons overrides this principle in practice.