Hat tip to Lawfare for an excellent article, which the editor introduces with:
The United States rightly regards the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Palestinian organization Hamas as a terrorist group, but Hamas is also the de facto government of the Gaza Strip. There it juggles the responsibilities of governing Gaza and the associated need to mollify Israel with its self-image as an Islamic “resistance” movement. Making this difficult act even harder, Hamas faces a terrorism problem of its own. Gaza is home to a range of groups that see Hamas as too accommodating toward Israel and too lenient when it comes to imposing Islamic law at home. Beverley Milton-Edwards, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast and renowned expert on Hamas, assesses these Islamist rivals and the risks for Hamas of being too confrontational or too passive in dealing with them.
The author concludes:
Although the challenge Hamas faces from its Islamist foes at present is limited, it is unlikely that this Islamist opposition will wither away, and in the current regional climate, the criticism they lay at Hamas’s feet may be ignored at their peril. As with neighboring North Sinai, Gaza could eventually succumb to proliferating takfiri jihadist forces, further undermining the delicate security balance currently prevailing in that part of the Middle East region.
Link:http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/05/t...islamist-foes/

Interesting interplay outside Gaza with Egypt too, which has its own problems in the Sinai.