Having moved the focus of its activity, at least temporarily, away from terrorism and the armed struggle against Israel, Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement founded in the Gaza Strip in late 1987, is now devoting its energies to asserting control at home, either in parallel to the PA or eventually, through elections, by taking over the domestic political arena from within. The Islamists have already achieved a startling degree of success, making impressive gains in local elections in Gaza and the West Bank. Once Israel has gone from Gaza, leading Palestinian experts suggest, Hamas will intensify its power bid, and ultimately, perhaps turn the Strip into a mini Hamastan.

Whether Israel will exit Gaza under fire or not is anybody's guess. [Khalil Shikaki] believes that Hamas has an incentive to make sure it does, if only to prove it can dictate the Israeli-Palestinian agenda concerning the Strip. Others point to the relative discipline in Hamas's ranks and see its commitment to the cease-fire as firm. Yoram Schweitzer, a research fellow at Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, has been holding lengthy meetings with Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails over the past few months, for academic purposes. He thinks the disengagement will pass off almost without a peep, and that if anything, Hamas will shift the focus of its struggle away from Gaza and try to replicate it in the West Bank. He expects Hamas to proceed with "cautious pragmatism," protecting its political interests and avoiding being branded by the international community as a Bin Laden-type terrorist organization.

Neither condition, it seems, will be fulfilled any time soon. Still, it is also assumed that Hamas, which has always gone to great lengths to avoid a Palestinian civil war, will continue to tread with care. When I ask Abu Zuhri if [Avi Dichter]'s statement about Hamas's army is true, he says the aim of such talk is to "create strife between the PA and Hamas." Hamas has never used its weapons against the PA, "even when it has been oppressed," he adds. "Our guns are only for the occupation."