Hamas and Israel Conflicting Strategies of Group-based Politics Pub894

8/7/2019 Hamas and Israel Conflicting Strategies of Group-based Politics Pub894

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HAMAS AND ISRAEL:CONFLICTING STRATEGIES OF GROUP-BASED

POLITICS

Sherifa Zuhur

December 2008

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CONTENTS

Foreword .......................................................................vBiographical Sketch of the Author ...........................viSummary .....................................................................viiIntroduction ...................................................................1Current Context ............................................................4HAMAS Roots in Short ...............................................5Summary of Recommendations ...............................16Background .................................................................20Postponement of Militant Islamism? .......................23Islamic Jihad ................................................................26HAMAS Growth ....................................................... 26Points of Doctrine .......................................................29Relations with the PLO-Fatah and

the Peace Processes ..............................................35Oslo .............................................................................. 36

Revolutionary Resistance vs. OverwhelmingForce (Means) .......................................................39

Ends ..40Recognition ......................................................44Two States ....................................................45Mistakes ...........................................................46HAMAS and Arab Political Currents ..47HAMAS Troubles with Jordan 49HAMAS in Syria 50HAMAS and Saudi Arabia ... 51Practicing Religion 52Political and Military Structure 53Zakat and Community ..56Hostages ..58HAMAS Threat Value ..58

HAMAS, the West, and the United States...............60Recommendations ..........61References ........................67Endnotes ..........................80


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FOREWORD

This monograph considers the changing fortunes of thePalestinian movement, HAMAS, and the recent outcomesof Israeli strategies aimed against this group and Palestiniannationalism external to the Fatah faction of the PalestinianAuthority. The example of HAMAS challenges much of thecurrent wisdom on insurgencies and their containment.As the author, Dr. Sherifa Zuhur, demonstrates, efforts havebeen made to separate HAMAS from its popular support andnetwork of social and charitable organizations. These have not

been effective in destroying the organization, nor in eradicatingthe will to resist among a fairly large segment of the Palestinianpopulation.

It is important to consider this Islamist movement in thecontext of a region-wide phenomenon of similar movementswith local goals, which can be persuaded to relinquish violence,or which could move in the opposite direction, becomingmore violent. Certainly an orientation to HAMAS and its base

must be factored into new and more practical and effectiveapproaches to peacemaking.At the same time, HAMAS offers a fascinating instance

of the dynamics of strategic reactions, and the modicationof Israeli impulses towards aggressive deterrence, as well asevolution in the Islamist movements planning and operations.As well, the Palestinian-Israeli conict bears similarities toa long-standing civil conict, even as it has sparked inter-Palestinian hostilities in its most recent phase.

The need for informed and critical discussion of thefuture of Islamism in the region continues today. We offerthis monograph to those who wish to consider this particularaspect of the Palestinian-Israeli-Arab conict.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.DirectorStrategic Studies Institute


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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

SHERIFA ZUHUR is Research Professor of Islamicand Regional Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute.She has many years of eld experience in the regionand specialized in the study of Islamist movementssince the late 1970s. She has lectured internationally,and held faculty positions in American and MiddleEastern universities including MIT, the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, the American University in Cairo,and the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle EasternStudies and Diplomacy at Ben Gurion University ofthe Negev. Dr. Zuhur is also currently the Director ofthe Institute for Middle Eastern, Islamic, and DiasporicStudies and an Associate Editor of the Bulletin of theMiddle Eastern Studies Association. She has published16 books or monographs, and more than 116 articles or

chapters in edited books and is a contributing editorof the Encyclopedia of Arab-IsraeliWars (2008) and theEncyclopedia of (US) Middle Eastern Wars. Among herstudies are Precision in the Global War on Terror: Inciting

Muslims through the War of Ideas (2008); Iran, Iraq and theUnited States: The New Triangles Impact on Sectarianismand the Nuclear Threat (2006); One Hundred Osamas:Islamist Threats and the Future of Counterinsurgency(2005), and Egypt: Security, Political, and IslamistChallenges (2007). She has most recently written amonograph on the counterterrorism program in SaudiArabia. Dr. Zuhur holds a B.A. in Political Scienceand Arabic, a Masters in Islamic Studies, and a Ph.D.in Middle Eastern History, all from the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles.


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SUMMARY

The conict between Palestinians and Israelis hasheightened since 2001, even as any perceived threatto Israel from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, or even Syria, hasdeclined. Israel, according to Chaim Herzog, Israelssixth President, had been born in battle and wouldbe obliged to live by the sword.1 Yet, the Israeligovernments conquest and occupation of the WestBank and Gaza brought about a very difcult challenge,although resistance on a mass basis was only takenup years later in the First Intifadha. Israel could nottolerate Palestinian Arabs resistance of their authorityon the legal basis of denial of self-determination,2and eventually preferred to grant some measures ofself-determination while continuing to consolidatecontrol of the Occupied Territories, the West Bank,

East Jerusalem, and Gaza. However, a comprehensivepeace, shimmering in the distance, has eluded all.Inter-Israeli and inter-Palestinian divisions deepenedas peace danced closer before retreating.

Israels stance towards the democratically-electedPalestinian government headed by HAMAS in 2006,and towards Palestinian national coherencelegal,territorial, political, and economichas been a majorobstacle to substantive peacemaking. The reasons forrecalcitrant Israeli and HAMAS stances illustrate bothcontinuities and changes in the dynamics of conictsince the Oslo period (roughly 1994 to the al-AqsaIntifadha of 2000). Now, more than ever, a long-termtruce and negotiations are necessary. These could leadin stages to that mirage-like peace, and a new type of

security regime.The rise in popularity and strength of the HAMAS

(Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or Movement of


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the Islamic Resistance) Organization and its interactionwith Israel is important to an understanding of Israels

Arab policies and its approach to counterterrorismand counterinsurgency. The crisis brought about bythe electoral success of HAMAS in 2006 also challengedWestern powers commitment to democratic change inthe Middle East because Palestinians had supported theorganization in the polls. Thus, the viability of a two-state solution rested on an Israeli acknowledgementof the Islamist movement, HAMAS, and on Fatahsceding power to it.

Shifts in Israels stated national security objectives(and dissent over them) reveal HAMAS placement atthe nexus of Israels domestic, Israeli-Palestinian, andregional objectives. Israel has treated certain enemiesdifferently than others: Iran, Hizbullah, and IslamistPalestinians (whether HAMAS, supporters of Islamic

Jihad, or the Islamic Movement inside Israel) all fallinto a particular rubric in which Islamismthe mostsalient and enduring socio-religious movement inthe Middle East in the wake of Arab nationalismisidentied with terrorism and insurgency rather thanwith group politics and identity. The antipathy toreligious fervor was somewhat ironic in light of Israelsown expanding religious (haredim) groups. InIsraels earlier decades, Islamic identity politics wereunderstood and successfully repressed, as Israelis didnot want to allow any repetition of the PalestinianMuftis nationalism or the Qassamiyya (the armedbrigades in the 1936-39 rebellion).

Yet at the same time, identity politics and religiousattitudes were not eradicated, but were inside of Israel,

bringing about great inequality as well as physicaland psychological separation of the Jewish and non- Jewish populations.3 This represented efforts to


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control politically and physically the now 20 percentArab minority, and dealt with the demographic

threat constantly spoken of in Israel by warding offintermarriage, limiting property control and rights,and physical access. Still today, some Israeli politicianscall for an exodus by Palestinian-Israelis (so-calledArab-Israelis) in some areas, who they wish to resettlein the West Bank.

For decades, Muslim religious properties andinstitutions were managed under Jewish supervisionsubstantial inter-Israeli conict over that supervisionnotwithstanding4and this allowed for a continuingstereotype of the recalcitrant, anti-modern Muslimsand Arabs who were punished for any expression ofPalestinian (or Arab) nationalism by replacing themimams or qadis, for instancewith more quiescentIsraeli Muslims, and by retaining Jewish control over

endowment (waqf), properties, and income.Contemporary Islamism took hold in Palestinian

society, as it has throughout the Middle East and has,to a great degree, supplanted secular nationalism.This is problematic in terms of the conict betweenIsrael and the Palestinians because the ofcial Israeliposition towards key IslamistsIran, Hizbullah, andthe Palestinian groups like HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, orHizb al-Tahrircharacterizes them as Israel-hatersand terrorists. They have become the existential threatto Israel (along with Iran) since the demise of SaddamHussein in Iraq.

Israel steadfastly rejected diplomacy and truceoffers by HAMAS for 8 months in 2008, despite anearlier truce that held for several years. By the spring

of 2008, continued rejection of a truce was politicallyrisky as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert teetered on theedge of indictment by his own party and nally had to


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announce his resignation in the summer. In fact, on hisway out the door, Olmert announced a peace plan that

ignores HAMAS and many demands of the PalestinianAuthority as a whole ever since Oslo. If the plan wasmerely to create a sense of Olmerts legacy, it is notaltogether clear why it offered so little compromise.

On the other hand, Israelis have for over a year5been discussing the wisdom of reconquering the GazaStrip (a prospect that would aid the Fatah side of thePalestinian Authority) and also engage in preemptivedeterrence or attacks on other states in the region. Thiscould happen at any time if the truce between Israeland HAMAS breaks down, although the risks of anyof these enterprises would be high. A potential dealwith Syria was also announced by Olmert, similarly,perhaps, to stave off his own resignation, and Syriamade a counteroffer.6 Turkish-mediated indirect talks

were to continue at the time of this writing, though theymight be rescheduled.7 Support for an Israeli attack onIran continues to play well in the Israeli media, despitethe fact that Israelis argue ercely about the wisdom ofsuch a course. All of this shows ux in the region, withIsrael in its customary strong, but concerned position.

HAMAS emerged as the chief rival to the secularist-nationalist framework of Fatah, the dominant memberof the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Thisoccurred as Palestinians rebelled against the worseningconditions they experienced following the Oslo PeaceAccords. HAMAS political and strategic developmenthas been both ignored and misreported in Israeli andWestern sources which villainize the group, much asthe PLO was once characterized as an anti-Semitic

terrorist group.8 Relatively few detailed treatments inEnglish counter the media blitz that reduces HAMASto its early, now defunct, 1988 charter.


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Disagreements within the Israeli military andpolitical establishments over the national security

objectives of that country reveal HAMAS placementat the nexus of Israels domestic, Palestinian, andregional objectives. This process can be traced back toAriel Sharons formation of the KADIMA Party anddecision to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza withoutengaging in a peace process with Palestinians. Thisreected a new understanding that Arab armies wereunlikely to launch any successful attack against Israel,but Israel should focus instead on protecting its Jewishcitizens via barrier methods.9

This new thinking coexists alongside the long-standing policies described by Yitzhak Shamir asaggressive defense; in other words, offensives aimedat increasing Israels strategic depth, or attackingpotential threats in neighboring countriesas in the

raid on the nearly completed nuclear power facilityat Osirak, Iraq, in 1981, or the mysterious OperationORCHARD carried out on a weapons cache in Syriain September 2007, or in the invasions, air, and groundwars (1978, 1982, 2006) in Lebanon.

Israelis considered occupied Palestinian territoriesvaluable in land-for-peace negotiations. During theOslo process, according to Israelis, Israel was ready towithdraw entirely to obtain peace.10 Actually, the valueof land to trade for peace and costs of maintainingsecurity for the settlers there, as well as containing theuprisings, were complicated equations. Palestiniansand others argue that, in fact, Israel offered no more inthe various proposed exchanges than the less valuableportion of the western West Bank and Gaza, and

refused to deal with outstanding issues such as thefate of Palestinian refugees (4,913,993 Palestinians liveoutside of Israel11 and the occupied territories; 1,337,388according to UNRWA12registered refugeeslive in


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camps, and 3,166,781 live outside of camps),13 prisoners,water, and the claim of Jerusalem as a capital.

Many Arabs believe that Israel never intendedthe formation of a Palestinian state, and that its land-settlement policies during the Oslo period provideproof of its true intentions. Either way, the Oslo opti-mism faded away between Israelis and Palestinianswith the al-Aqsa (Second) Intifadha in October 2000.

The Israeli Right, and part of its Left, claimed thatthe diplomatic collapse, plus Arafats governmentscorruption, showed there was no partner to peace.Another segment of the Israeli Left has continued untilthis day to argue for land-for-peace and completewithdrawal from the territories.

According to Barry Rubin, the Israeli military feltthe Palestinian threat would not increase, and thatif settlers could be evacuated and a stronger line

of defense erected, they might better defend theircitizenry. That defense could not be achieved withsuicide attacks ongoing in Israeli population centers.When earlier Israeli strategies had not achieved anend to Palestinian Islamist violence, Israelis hadpushed this task onto the Fatah-dominated PalestinianAuthority in the 1990s.14 Pointing to the failures ofthe Palestinian Authority, the new Israeli securitist(bitchonist, in Hebrew, or security-focused) strategymoved away from negotiations, and called for furtherseparation and segregation of the Israeli populationfrom Palestinians. Neither a full-blown physicalresistance by Palestinians, including suicide attacks,or the missiles launched from Gaza could be dealtwith in this manner. The rst depended on granting

Palestinians rights to partial self-government, and themissile attacks were negotiated in Israels June 2008truce.


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Israel claimed signicant victories in its war againstPalestinians by the use of targeted killings of leadership,

boycotts, power cuts, preemptive attacks and detentions,and punishments to militants families, relatives, andneighborhoods etc., because its counterterrorism logicis to reduce insurgents organizational capability. Thisparticular type of Israeli analysis rejects the idea thatcounterterrorist violence can spark more resistanceand violence,15 but one proponent also admitted thatIsrael had not defeated the will to resistance [ofPalestinians].16 This admission suggests that the tacticsemployed might not be indenitely manageable, andthat Palestinians, despite every possible effort made toweaken or incriminate them, to discourage or preventtheir Arab non-Palestinian supporters from defendingtheir interests, and to buy the services of collaborators,could edge Israelis back toward comprehensive

negotiations, or rise up again against them. MosheSharett, Israels second Prime Minister, once asked:Do people consider that when military reactionsoutstrip in their severity the events that caused them,grave processes are set in motion which widen thegulf and thrust our neighbors into the extremist camp?How can this deterioration be halted?17

HAMAS and its new wave of political thought,which had supported armed resistance along with theaim to create an Islamic society, had overtaken Fatah inpopularity. Fatah, with substantial U.S. support edgedcloser to Israeli positions over 2006-07, promising todiminish Palestinian resistance, although PresidentMahmud Abbas had no means to do so, and could noteven ensure Fatahs survival in the West Bank without

HAMAS assent, and had been routed from Gaza.Negotiating solely with the weaker Palestinian

partyFatahcannot deliver the security Israel


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requires. This may lead Israel to reconquer the GazaStrip or the West Bank and continue engaging in

preemptive deterrence or attacks on other states inthe region in the longer term.

The underlying strategies of Israel and HAMASappear mutually exclusive and did not, prior to thesummer of 2008, offer much hope of a solution tothe Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conict. Yet each sideis still capable of revising its desired endstate and ofnecessary concessions to establish and preserve a long-term truce, or even a longer-term peace.

ENDNOTES - SUMMARY

1. Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East: From the War of Independence through Lebanon, NewYork: Random House, 1982, p. 362.

2. John Quigley, Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice,Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1990, pp. 189-197.

3. Many works deal with this issue. A detailed study of thecity of Acre is instructive. Rebecca L. Torstrick, The Limits ofCoexistence: Identity Politics in Israel, Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 2000.

4. Alisa Rubin Peled, Debating Islam in the Jewish State: The

Development of Policy Toward Islamic Institutions in Israel, Albany:State University of New York Press, 2001.

5. Personal interviews, August 2008. Also see Pierre Razoux,Mission Report to Israel, May 24-31, 2008, NATO DefenseCollege.

6.Associated Press, September 4, 2008.

7.Jerusalem Post, September 8, 2008; also see Ramzy Baroud,The Syria-Israel Peace Gambit, Pacifc Free Press, September 14,2008.


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8. Ali Abunimeh, Hamas and the Two-State Solution: Villain,Victim, or Missing Ingredient,Middle East Policy, Vol. XV, No. 3,Summer 2008, pp. 15-16.

9. Barry Rubin, Israels New Strategy, Foreign Affairs, Vol.85, Issue 4, July/August 2006, pp. 111-112.

10. Ibid.

11. Source: PCBS, Mid-year 2004 Estimates, Statistical Abstract,No. 6, 2005.

12. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for PalestineRefugees in the Near East.

13. Source: UNRWA HQ, UNRWA in Figures, June 2007.

14. Glenn E. Robinson, Building a Palestinian State: TheIncomplete Revolution, Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1997, p. 189.

15. Hillel Frisch, Motivation or Capabilities? IsraeliCounterterrorism against Palestinian Suicide Bombings andViolence,Mideast Security and Policy Studies, Begin-Sadat Centerfor Strategic Studies, Bar Ilan University, December 2006. All, andcountering Mia Bloom, pp. 1-3.

16. Statement by Israeli military personnel, June 2006.

17. As cited in Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System ofIsrael, Setting, Images, Process, New Haven: Yale University Press,1972, p. 287.


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HAMAS AND ISRAEL:CONLICTING STRATEGIES OF GROUP-

BASED POLITICS

Introduction.

The conict between Palestinians and Israelis hasheightened since 2001, while at the same time anymajor military threat to Israel from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq,or even Syria, has visibly declined. Israel, accordingto Chaim Herzog, Israels sixth President, had beenborn in battle, and would be obliged to live by thesword.1 Yet, the Israeli governments conquest andoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza brought about avery difcult challenge, although resistance on a massbasis was only taken up years later in the First Intifadha.Israel could not tolerate Palestinian Arabs resistance

of their authority on the legal basis of denial of self-determination,2 and eventually preferred to grantsome measures of self-determination while continuingto consolidate control of the territories. However, acomprehensive peace, shimmering in the distance, haseluded all. Inter-Israeli and inter-Palestinian divisionsdeepened as peace danced closer before retreating.

Israels stance towards the democratically-electedPalestinian government headed by HAMAS in 2006 hasbeen a major obstacle to substantive peacemaking. Thereasons for Israels position, and HAMAS continuingverbal support of resistance, even as a fragile trucetook hold on June 19, 2008, leads us to examine thisrelationship.

Since the outset of the Second, or Al-Aqsa,

Intifadha in 2000,3 Israeli security forces have killed4,718 Palestinians and 10 foreign citizens. Palestinianshave killed 236 Israeli civilians, 244 Israeli security


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forces, and 17 foreign citizens.4 The numbers of deadand injured would be greatly inated if we calculated

the casualties in all of the Israeli-Arab wars. Anothervery negative outcome of the conict that has inhibitedPalestinian social and political development is the largenumbers of Palestinians detained and imprisoned,more than 700,000 since 1967, and the vast majoritywere political prisoners. Today, some 8,500 (Israelsgure)5 to 11,229 (the Mandela Institutes gure) arein prison, including 375 juveniles, 104 women, andsome 870 to 836 (Btselems gure) are administrativedetainees, in addition to about 3,000 at the time of thiswriting held by the Palestinian Authority (PA) (whoprimarily represent HAMAS prisoners of the Fatah-dominated PA in the West Bank). It is difcult to nd aPalestinian man, certainly not a HAMAS member of acertain age who has not experienced several temporary

detentions and incarcerations. Israels High Courtbanned torture in 1999 but still practices isolation,prolonged interrogation, threats to family members,and denial of access to lawyers.

The conict has moreover become a Muslim cause,and at the same time, remains a national one. To makematters worse, the Palestinian use of suicide attacksincreased since their rst appearance in the 1990s as atactic to avenge Israeli killings of Palestinian civilians.6The many suicide attacks, often by self-recruitedindividuals, that became more frequent since 2000-01,presented a major challenge to Israels defense of itspopulation centers. The attractions of martyrdom werenot a phenomenon that could easily be extinguishedby the Palestinian leadership, particularly when it had

nothing concrete to offer its population in its stead,and the condition of that population had worsened,not improved, in the Oslo era. As peace agreements


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between Israel and Egypt and Jordan had cancelled outthe possibility of effective Arab resistance to Israel, only

Palestinian bottom-up or popular action remained anoption to Palestinians unable to obtain relief throughdiplomacy or political participation. Nevertheless,Palestinians, and even HAMAS, moved in these latterdirections.

The 2006 electoral success, subsequent Westernand Israeli boycott of the HAMAS organization, andfactional strife among Palestinians are important to anunderstanding of Islamist movements, counterter-rorism, counterinsurgency, and political develop-ment.

HAMAS strategic development will be describedmore fully below. HAMAS members internal debateon armed resistance is long-standing. As Dr. Naser El-Din Al-Shaer, former Dean of the Islamic University

and Minister of Education until the HAMAS govern-ment was red by Abbas, and a moderate who metwith former President Jimmy Carter, explained:

If there is any attack on the Israelis, they speak ofterrorism and terrorism, and more terrorism. If Hamasand Islamic Jihad and all of these armed groups [suchas Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade] cease attacking Israel, thenIsrael will say: Look, theyve lost their power; and theycan do nothing against us, so we are not going to givethem anything.

So by which means will Israel give our land back to us?If we are fully sovereign and we can attack the Israelis,then they identify us as we are terrorists and the wholeworld is supposed to side with them against us. And ifwe talk about peace, they said, look they arent able todo anything, so look let us give them nothing. So whichlanguage do they understand?7


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Current Context.

HAMAS confronted the dismantling of its edu-cational and social initiatives over all the West Bankone and a half years after it began its struggle to govern.Citizens of West Bank towns were mistreated, brutallybeaten, and detained on a nightly basis, not only bythe Israeli Defense Force (IDF) but also by Fatah-allied PA security ofcers.8 In just 1 week, Israel made38 military raids or incursions into the West Bank,killing a child, wounding two others, and abducting48 civilians (without charge) including juveniles. Thisincluded a raid into al-Far`a refugee camp, respondingto children demonstrating at the funeral of the childkilled, and a demonstration against the separation Wallat Bil`in.9 This was perhaps a typical week in the WestBank, which, according to the Western media, is being

peacefully controlled by the PA. Al-Shaer commentedon those tortured in PA custody, including a 67-year-old man who had suffered a cerebral hemorrhagefrom severe beating. PA ofcers raided and closed theIslamic schools and charities, including one with 1,000students, in Nablus, Hebron, and Jeninwhich havelarge concentrations of HAMAS supportersand theirinstitutional boards were reconstituted with Fatahmembers. This is regarded widely as the PAs efforts tofollow Israeli (and perceived American) directions toroot out HAMAS social support structure. Some 2,000persons were arrested.

Shaer complained that the Abbas-controlled WestBank displayed a policy of violence, not security, andreported other scandalous types of corruption ongoing

in the Fayyad-managed government headed by Abbas.He warned again that the population only sees a choicebetween continued humiliation and a mass popular


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resistance, and that it might be impossible to reasonagainst a new Intifadha.10 Just a day earlier, on August

10, Palestinians had responded to the campaign againstHAMAS with a demonstration calling for nationalunity.11

HAMAS Roots in Short.

HAMAS was at rst a social and educationalinitiative of certain actors, primarily Shaykh AhmedYasin (c. 1937-2004) from within the Palestinian branchof the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Yasins natalvillage of al-Jura was destroyed during the 1948 war,and his family ed to Gaza. He became a quadriplegicafter an accident at the age of 12, and attended al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he was attracted tothe Muslim Brotherhood.

HAMAS inherited all the hallmarks of a MuslimBrotherhood organization in its aim to create a moreIslamic society out of a conviction that developingthe proper structures12 will bring about a truly moral(but not totalitarian) Islamic society. Further, it hasemphasized unity among Muslims and idealizesPalestinian unity, and eschews takfr (rejectionism,dening others as false Muslims), a key aspect of theideology of radical salas such as Osama bin Ladin.For many years, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhoodhad put political activism on hold in Gaza, and focusedinstead on delivering religious and social services andmissionary activity (da`wa). This tactical strategy wasnecessary to ensure the Brotherhoods survival, as aresult of the Egyptian governments severe suppression

of the Brethren. Even when the Brethren were releasedfrom Egyptian jails, it was with the understandingthat the group would not seek legal party status. The


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groups tactical approach in Gaza was to focus rst oncreating an Islamic social and political entity, for doing

so, the group held, would eventually return Palestineto the Palestinians.13

Eventually, the founders of HAMAS developeda wing for militant action, thus breaking withthe Palestinian, Egyptian, and Jordanian MuslimBrotherhoods more movement-oriented approach.HAMAS was then ofcially announced shortly afterthe outbreak of the First Intifadha. It gained supportsteadily in the population despite the signing of theOslo Accords which the organization opposed, as didmany other Palestinian factions and individuals. Thesuffering of much of the Palestinian population duringthe Oslo period, as well as the breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, together with Ariel Sharonsincitement of Palestinians by insisting on bringing

troops and signaling Israeli authority over the Haramal-Sharifthe compound containing the al-AqsaMosque and the Dome of the Rock that Israelis callthe Temple Mount (to indicate the ruins of the SecondTemple underneath the ground) in Jerusalemledto the al-Aqsa or Second Intifadha. In this secondpopular uprising, HAMAS, as well as Fatah-linkedorganizations, engaged in militancy.

In the 1990s, HAMAS had become a refuge formany of those Palestinians who disagreed with theaims and leadership of the Oslo initiative. A substantialnumber of members of the Popular Committees of thePLO, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation ofPalestine (DFLP) also opposed Oslo, but these groups

and HAMAS could agree on little other than continuedresistance. The main thrust of HAMAS activities wasnot militant actions against Israel, but rather social,


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charitable, educational, and political programs aimedat Palestinians.

Civil society organizations delivering servicesand aid to the population have long been importantin Palestinian camps and areas. Those created by thevarious arms of the PLO rivaled each other, and alsoto some extent the traditional elites in Palestiniansociety. HAMAS was also able to draw on the salienceof religion in an Islamizing society. The number ofmosques in Gaza doubled between 1967 and 1987. TheMujama` Islami model in Gaza established by ShaykhYassin provided a different type of mosque communitythan the traditional one, offering affordable servicesand programs, often located within the mosquesthemselves.14

HAMAS also founded the Scientic MedicalAssociation in 1997 which operated medical and dental

services and a blood bank.15

The group established theAssociation for Science and Culture, and providededucation from kindergarten through eighth gradefor Gazans. The Islamic Workers Union was set up in1992. All of these efforts were extremely important,as were the creation of other educational bodies andthe establishment of student blocs of support andorganizations of professionals and womens associa-tions which challenged some of the more secular-feminist orientation of other Palestinian groups.16

Especially after September 11, 2001 (9/11), U.S.advisors argued that a crackdown on HAMAScharitable activities was of paramount importance.Dennis Ross and Matthew Levitt characterize thegroups charitable and educational activities as

nefarious efforts at recruitment, or to socialize newsuicide bombers,17 decrying the addition of Koranicmemorization centers that mimic in a religious setting


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the tight clique-like structure of the terrorist cell.18American and Israeli targeting of Muslim charitable or

social organizations was not a novel policy. Israeli andAmerican pressure had already been put on Arafat whoclosed more than 20 HAMAS organizations in 1997,and more closures took place in 2001 and 2002.19 Whatwas new, post-9/11, was an additional series of attackson organizations thought to provide aid to HAMASfrom abroad such as the Holy Land Foundation in theUnited States which was closed in 2001, but againstwhich the government failed to secure a convictionin the Dallas-based trial which concluded in 2007.20The logic that the PA could replace the charitable andsocial services provided by HAMAS was faulty. It didnot, but an important aim of HAMAS in 2004-05 was toreinstate some services to which it devotes the majority(something like 95 percent) of its annual budget.

Given the favorable perception of HAMAS, thenegative perception of Arafats clique-like leadership,and chaotic battles between youths loyal to differentgroups, as well as criminality and corruption, no oneshould have been surprised by HAMAS electoralvictory in 2006. At the time of this writing, the Israelimilitary and security sectors are in disaccord over theproper approach to the Palestinian population andHAMAS, despite a fragile truce engineered by externalArab states, which began June 19, 2008.

This monograph suggests that an understandingof the diverging paths of Israeli and HAMASstrategic thought, along with an overview of HAMASdevelopment, explains the stand-off. Further, anunderstanding of the American role in the emergence

of a regional security regime is useful. The United Statescan project power, aid deterrence, provide equipment,elicit cooperation, and provide formal and informal


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guarantees, thus its role seems essential in any solutionto the current deadlock. However, the type of security

regime that the United Status supports, such as thealliance between Israel and Mahmud Abbas Fatahelements of the PA, may not necessarily be effective ordurable, as Robert Lieber had suggested in a generalanalysis of the issue in the period following the rstGulf War.21

Disagreements within the Israeli military andpolitical establishments over the national securityobjectives of that country reveal HAMAS placementat the nexus of Israels domestic, Palestinian, andregional objectives. This process can be traced back toAriel Sharons formation of the KADIMA Party, and thedecision to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza withoutengaging in a peace process with Palestinians.

The reasons for this new strategy were: the

assumption that it is unlikely that Arab armieswould launch a conventional attack against Israel;fear of vulnerability within Israeli-held areas; andIsraeli unwillingness to bargain with key Palestinianleadership (Arafat, the new Fatah as represented byimprisoned political gure Marwan Barghouti, or theHamas leaders). It was now thought that Israel shouldhold to a defensive line encircling its citizens ratherthan holding on to Gaza and the West Bank for troopdispersal.22 This new thinking comprised a defensivestrategy that did not exactly replace, but stood alongsideother Israeli approaches, for instance, that described byYitzhak Shamir as aggressive defense, in other words,offensives aimed at creating security zonesin thesouth of Lebanon, notably to extend Israels strategic

depth.


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The occupied territories had also been thought ofas being valuable in land for peace negotiations, and

during the Oslo process, according to one line of Israelithought, Israel was ready to withdraw entirely inorder to obtain peace.23 Palestinians might argue that,in fact, Israel was never serious about this exchange,and its land-settlement policies during the Osloperiod demonstrate this, as hundreds of settlementswere established and/or expanded, and settlers wereprovided with various types of incentives, tax breaks,and other benets. Settlers safety, particularly in transitto and from the settlements, is an enormous headachefor the Israeli authorities. Their resort to vigilanteviolence against Palestinians is an aspect of the conictoften overlooked in the Western media. Added to thislack of commitment was the failure of the parties tograpple with nal status issuesPalestinian refugees,

Jerusalem, etc. The optimism about negotiating andOslo expectations faded with the al-Aqsa Intifadha,and Israelis blamed Palestinians for this failure, leadingto claims and frequent statements from the Israeli Rightand part of the Israeli Left that there was no partner topeace.

Another segment of the Israeli Left has continueduntil this day to argue for land-for-peace andcomplete withdrawal from the territories. Still othersrecalculated the main threat as Palestinians whocould, and did, threaten Israeli centers of populationwith suicide bombings, adding to that threat, thePalestinians living inside of Israel (Arab Israelis) whomake up 20 percent of the population. Calls for theirrelocation or repatriation to the West Bank continue,

and their employment, and that of Palestinians fromthe West Bank and Gaza, has been supplanted, Israelipolicies against immigrant workers notwithstanding,by foreign non-Jewish immigrant workers.


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According to Barry Rubin, the Israeli military feltthe threat posed by Palestinians would not signicantly

increase, but that if settlers could be evacuated anda stronger line of defense erected, they could betterdefend their citizenry. That thinking led to the Wallor Security Fence. The remaining threat was missileslaunched from Gaza, and indeed these continued.Israel claimed signicant victories in its war againstPalestinians by the use of targeted killings of leadership,boycotts, power cuts, etc., but also admitted that it hadnot defeated the will to resistance.24 Of course, thissentiment speaks directly to the ultimate challengeof all insurgencies in which the settler, or colonial, orinvading power, essentially loses the war, if not specicbattles, from the moment the resistance gains popularsupport.25 And it shows that the situation might not beindenitely manageable, and that Palestinians, despite

every possible effort made to weaken, incriminate,and separate Arab allies from their interests, or paycollaborators, might yet edge Israelisif they moveaway from their own politicians and militarysthinkingback toward comprehensive negotiations.

In a remarkable sequence of events, Fatah elementsof the PA battled HAMAS and, despite the militarytraining provided to them under U.S. auspices, they lostcontrol of Gaza. The fratricidal 4-day conict resultedin 80 fatalities; some were the settling of old scores, saidHanan Ashrawi, an independent Palestinian politician.Fatah and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades carried outrevenge actions, killing some, abducting some 23persons, and attacking HAMAS-linked institutionsin the West Bank. In a confusing move, thought to

originate with U.S. advice but also with Israeli stancestoward HAMAS in mind,26 Mahmoud Abbas (whosesupporters had lost the election, but who had been


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Ironically, the attacks cemented Nasirs popularity andvindicated his claims that the former colonial powers

were conspiring with the new Zionist state they hadhelped establish. This time around, the Jerusalem Posttrumpeted every action against HAMAS in Gaza andevery instance of violence against Fatah, and manyarticles expressed fear of life in an Islamic state, whichthe Post calls Hamasistan. Yet, the Gazan populationdid not overthrow their leadership.

All in all, HAMAS, after the initial, very regrettableviolence in Gaza, restored order, and thoughcontinuing to battle certain powerful clans, earnedrespect; instituting the rst 911 emergency telephoneservice, and operating more efciently than expected,considering the boycott and the organized violencedirected against it by the above-mentioned clans(like the Dughmush) and Fatah, both with external

funding.28

HAMAS discouraged the pro-Al-Qaidagroups operating in Gaza, although they did not havetotal control over the Islamic Army or PalestinianIslamic Jihad.

In February 2008, almost one-half of the 1.2 millionGazan population breached the Egyptian border to buyfood and supplies that they had been denied for monthsunder the Israeli boycott. This created a good deal ofstress on the Israeli-Egyptian political relationship.Israel expected Egypt to moderate, even terminateits support for HAMAS; something that the Egyptiangovernment could not do, given the strength of popularEgyptian support for HAMAS and the Palestinianstrapped in Gaza. Israel (and also Washington) havemaintained since that a condition of allowing the

Rafah border to be opened would be for the Egyptiansto pressure HAMAS from using the tunnels, allegedlyused to bring arms into Gaza, although more recently


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HAMAS initial strategy of armed resistance andpopular uprising against Israel has been tamed as it

has instead pursued political participation, acceptedthe notion of a limited area of an envisioned Palestinianstate, and in its calmings and truces which acknowledge(and therefore recognize) Israel in a de facto manner.33It was severely criticized for this change in strategy byAyman Zawahiri. Yet it continues to hold out the threatof popular resistance should negotiations fail andoccupation continue, and is struggling militarily andpolitically against Fatah, its brother organization. Suchcivil strife is not HAMAS preferred mode, and it hastaken many unwanted steps and actions to seek an endto this strife which is fueled by external actors as wellas internal divisions. HAMAS has put its vision of anIslamic state on hold as well as its general political stanceof positive versus negative freedom34tolerating,

even recommending diversity and representation ofother groups, if Palestinian autonomy can be pursued.

The underlying strategies of both Israel andHAMAS do not elicit strong optimism in a solutionto the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conict, but each is stillcapable of revising its strategies, or desired end-statesand establishing a long-term truce, or better yet, alonger-term peace.

A peaceful resolution to this conict should remain aprimary objective of Israel, the Palestinians, other Araband Muslim nations, and of the United States. The Arab-Israeli conict has complicated regional developmentin myriad ways, and remains a key grievance for a farbroader Muslim population who see in it perdy andhypocrisy by Israel, and that Israels strongest ally, the

United States, has not acted as a fair and neutral brokerin affairs of the region.


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If the next American president turns his attentionto the Israeli-Palestinian conict in a sustained,

methodical, and creative manner together with otherQuartet members and perhaps Arab delegates untilresolution, then an important co-condition for successin the Global War on Terror will be achieved, as wellas an enormous benet to the citizens, economies, andpolitical development of the region.

Summary of Recommendations.

A better understanding of HAMAS, its history andevolution, the reasons for and level of sympathies fromPalestinians and other Muslim and Arab nations forthe organization, and its stances on various issues isimperative for policymakers because the Islamist andnationalist base of support for the organization and its

essential principles is not likely to disappear.To the degree that the United States is committed

to the establishment of a just and sovereign Palestinianentity, it would also behoove policymakers to considercarefully the ramications of making alliancesselectively with specic groups and actors in anysociety. The consequences of such alliances forgedduring the Saddam period with opposition groups cannow be seen in Iraq, where the obvious losers in thenew balance of power, Sunni Arabs, especially thosewith geographical and political links to the formerregime, felt they had no stake in the new government.The Shii parties were supposed to include thesegroups in military and police structures but havenot yet done so. In the Palestinian case, the current

preferences for dealing with, or restricting U.S. supportonly to followers of Mahmud Abbas or members ofhis nonelected government in the West Bank have


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backred, given the staying power of HAMAS. It wouldbe best if these elements eventually chose to support a

broader Palestinian alliance. Indeed, this is HAMASposition, but it rests on a shift within the PA.

Meanwhile, more constructive policy avenuessuch as supporting the building of Palestinianinstitutions (with appropriate transparency35), aidingreform, and planning for the economic well-beingof Palestinian society have taken a backseat to 2006and 2007 actions intended to strangle HAMAS, all ofwhich were ineffective, or thus far, destructive. Somesimilarities with the South African and Irish situationsare instructive.36 The violence, while not symmetrical,has gone so far as to injure the moral standing of bothpartiesIsraelis and Palestinians (associated withHAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ], and certainother groups) even if national survival is at stake.

Yet, in the Irish case, negotiators included the SinnFein; and in the South African case, the previouslyviolent actions of the African National Congress werepermitted to recede into the past so that a new society,free of racial injustice, could be established.

The rst course of action that I had recommended inJanuary 2008 was to accept the offer of Ismail Haniyehto a restored truce. The temporary truce concluded onJune 17, 2008, was therefore an important rst step.

A much more signicant prisoner exchange needsto take place. Fewer than 500 of the 10,000 Palestinianpolitical prisoners were released in 2006-07. Palestiniansshould prevail on HAMAS to release Shalit as an actof good faith. HAMAS, however, is adamant that asubstantial number of its prisoners be released in the

exchange.37 The Israeli and international boycott ofthe PA government is also supposed to end under thecurrent truce, and this is absolutely essential to restore


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key services, medicines, foods, and reprovide salaries.HAMAS and other charitable social services which

have been attacked in the West Bank must be put backunder professional management. There is no reasonfor them to operate as Fatah, rather than as HAMASentities. However, they can and must do so with thegreatest degree of transparency,38 as should town zakatcommittees, which are a very important source of socialwelfare.

Israel needs to abandon the aspects of its newdefensive strategy which are calculated to thwartpeace efforts. Reliance on perimeter control asthrough barriers has, along with years of constrictingmovement, curfews, and land acquisition policies, ledto a terrible apartheid-like separation of the populationand threatens any coherence to the West Bank. It maybe impossible to convince Israel to dismantle the

security fence, known as the Wall. But there would bea great benet to doing so. The Jewish and Palestinianpopulations do not need to be herded into separateareasthey need to be reacquainted with each other,as segregation has bred hatred and fear. Further, theIsraeli militarys desire to engage in limited partialand temporary withdrawals, followed by territorialreconquests is antithetical to conict resolution as itdestroys the prospect of trust.

As a HAMAS spokesperson stated: We are notagainst trust or security. We know the Israelis wouldlike to have security. . . but at the same time, weknow we cannot live with our own liquidation. Tothe same degree, when HAMAS reserves the optionof reengaging in violent jihad, the trust that mustif

there is to be peacebe extended by Israelis is eroded.A long-term truce must be safe for all, honorable, bringjustice, and a remedy to the Palestinians who have been


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deprived their self-determination and their freedom,but also ensure an end to violence.

The deepest challenge to HAMAS is that, in returnfor territory, it must abandon the strategy of militantresistance and focus on supplying good governance. Itwill need to uncouple the dream of martyrdom fromnationalist violence, for its own cadres and other youth.That may only be accomplished, given the religiousstrictures around jihad that HAMAS recognizesthrough the device of a long-term truce, but that trucewould be desirable.

The world community should discourage Israelfrom enacting further restrictions on Palestinians thatwill prevent them from working inside of Israel. Thishas debased both the Israeli national conception of itscitizens and further transformed Gaza and the WestBank into Bantustans, conning a population which

used to work inside of Israel. An economic and develop-mental solution needs the input of all parties, in additionto the political/military situation, so that Palestiniansdo not live in closed areas devoid of sufcient employ-ment, or food and goods, as prompted the ight to Egyptin early 2008. A return to the more hopeful planningof a Palestinian state, as evinced in several studies,39is required. In the last years, the United States shiftedits emphasis toward state-building in the Middle Eastto Iraq, and secondarily to Afghanistan, necessarily so.However, it has not been wise to diminish its peaceefforts to symbolic exchanges of good intent withselect factions of the Palestinians and Israelis (whilesponsoring a Contra-like action against HAMASunder supporters of Muhammad Dahlan and other

Fatah elements). U.S. foreign policy in the Middle Eastwould be greatly strengthened with an entente betweenIsrael and all of the Palestinians.


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While this should eventually determine nalstatus compromises, it need not do so at present,

as Haim Malka has recommended, but reenteringa phase of negotiatingwith all parties, includingHAMASis essential. (Should negotiations falter, hethen recommends a unilateral Israeli withdrawal fromthe West Bank.)40 Palestinians, even Ahmed Qurei,and Sari Nusseibeh, have stated that there is a limitedwindow for negotiations now, and each have suggesteda return to the notion of a one-state solution, which Ibelieve would be disastrous for the Palestinians.

Background.

HAMAS, meaning zeal or enthusiasm (an acronymfor Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya or the Move-ment of the Islamic Resistance), is an offshoot of the

Islamist trend in Palestinian society. HAMAS originsare with the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brother-hood movement (referred to as Ikhwan or Brethren)which dates back to the 1940s, and the Egyptian parentbranch which dates back to 1928. However, it shouldalso be noted that Fatah (the largest of the four organi-zations of the PLO) was not exclusively or partic-ularly secularist. Indeed, the founding members ofFatah, with the exception of Yasir Arafat, were allmembers of the Muslim Brotherhood organization,which later produced HAMAS.

HAMAS rather late emergence evolved fromIsraels antagonism to Palestians and the necessarilyquiescent policies of the Muslim Brotherhood towardboth Egypt and Jordan. The Muslim Brotherhood

was challenged by the Saraya al-Jihad al-Islami, orPalestinian Islamic Jihad, which emerged in the early


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1980s and began to attract the support of Palestinianyouth. Clearly, other reasons for popular support for

a new type of Palestinian resistance movement canalso be traced to the exodus of the PLO leadership toLebanon from 1967-70 and its forced retreat to Tunis,following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Thisdistant leadership reacted to, rather than led, grass-roots developments like the First Intifadha in the Pales-tinian occupied territories.

Other important reasons for the emergence ofHAMAS (and Islamic Jihad and other Islamist actorslike the Islamic Movement inside Israel and smallersalast organizations) were the worsening economicconditions in the territories, and the effect of Israelscounterinsurgent measures taken rst against the PLOand later against all other forms of Palestinian political,cultural, intellectual, and militant associations and

activities. The heightening of Islamist sentiment in theMiddle East as in Palestinian communities in exile hasonly increased since HAMAS ofcial establishment in1987.

Some accounts simply describe HAMAS emergingfrom the previously-mentioned organization called theMujama` Islami established by Shaykh Ahmed Yasin,who became an extremely popular preacher and scholarupon his return to Gaza from Egypt. One account linkstwo paramilitary organizations, a Security Section(Jihaz al-Amn) and al-Mujahidun al-Falastiniyun(which included the Izz al-Din Qassam brigades),directly to Shaykh Yasin.41 In fact, the rationale andpreparations for militant activities against the Israelioccupation of the West Bank and Gaza date to the late

1970s as Yasin and others believed that the jihad asda`wa must be complemented with jihad as armedstruggle.


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Earlier the Brotherhood had decided not to supportKhalil al-Wazirs initial suggestion in 1957 to form a

group to liberate Palestine.42

Certain individuals wentahead anyway and formed the Palestine NationalLiberation Movement, Fatah. Fatahs belief was that anational liberation movement would impel the Arabarmies to ght for the Palestinian cause. President Jamalabd al-Nasir of Egypt, a highly popular gure in theArab world, had suppressed the Muslim Brotherhoodfollowing an alleged assassination attempt on himin 1956. Nasir was supported by Palestinians for hiscommitment to Arab nationalism and unity. Yet, likeKing Husayn of Jordan, his aims were not identicalwith Palestinians guerrilla efforts, which elicited sharpIsraeli responses and military attacks.

The 1967 defeat of the Arab armies showed thedisappointing result of Palestinian reliance on Arab

governments and militaries as far as many wereconcerned, among them Shaykh Yasin. He wasconvinced that Palestinians must mount their ownresistance, and began focusing on cadre formation,participation in, and organization of demonstrationsand strikes. A conference was held in Amman in 1983at which time a decision was made to support jihad bythe Ikhwan in Palestine. Simultaneously, $70,000 raisedby the Kuwaiti branch of the Ikhwan was received bythe Palestine Committee (also known as the InsideCommittee).43 Various committees were establishedby Palestinian Ikhwan from Jordan, Saudi Arabia,and other Gulf states to support the resolutions takenin Amman, and within a few years, a body, the JihazFalastin (Palestine Apparatus), was in operation.

Meanwhile, Shaykh Yasin began buying arms,mainly from the Israeli black market, but was stungby Israeli collaborators. Those involved were caught,


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tortured by Israelis, and revealed the network up toShaykh Yasin, who was arrested and put on trial in

1984.44

The Israelis found about half of the weaponspurchased; the others were hidden. Yasin was releasedfrom jail in the Ahmad Jibril prisoner exchange in1985.45 The entire incident bolstered those Ikhwan,particularly in the West Bank, who had maintainedthat armed jihad against Israel, as a local initiative,would fail, and that the correct path was to continueworking toward an Islamic state.

However, the movement acquired martyrs duringa 1986 protest at Bir Zeit University and becameincreasingly popular and participatory in publicevents. During the Intifadha, the Amn (or securityarm of HAMAS) became active and went after Israelicollaborators in squads known as the Majd. Thesein turn also embarked on armed actions against the

Israelis after the Intifadha began in 1987.HAMAS was announced shortly after the outbreak

of the Intifadha on December 14, 1987, though it madeDecember 8, 1987, its ofcial date of establishment tocoincide with the Intifadha.46 Its founders includedShaykh Ahmad Yasin; Salah Shahadah, a former stu-dent leader who headed the military wing; Muham-mad Shaàh; Abd al-Àziz Rantisi, a physician at the Is-lamic University; Ìsa al-Nashar; Ibrahim al-Yazuri;Abd al-Fattah Dukhan; and Yahya al-Sinuwwar.

Postponement of Militant Islamism?

As explained above, HAMAS and the Islamic trendemerged more belatedly than in other parts of the

Muslim world due to Palestinian dislocation and thestruggle against Israel. When those secular Palestinianscommitted to armed resistance were essentially


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ren (Ikhwan) set up branches in Syria, the Sudan,Libya, the Gulf states, Jordan (which inuenced the

West Bank), and Gaza. From 1948 through the 1950s,military rule over the Palestinians was sufcientlyrepressive, and the Brothers both there and withinEgypt were under siege, either underground or put inprison by the Nasir regime, or in exile. For 2 decades,the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood focused on itsreligious, educational, and social missions, and wasquiescent politically. That changed with the 1987 (First)Intifadha also known as the intifadha of stones, becausethe Palestinians were primarily reacting to Israeli forcein demonstrations by throwing stones and burningtires. However, the outburst of popular resistance evenin the face of constant and numerous arrests, collectivepunishments, destruction of property, and otherpunitive actions, and Israels use of live ammunition

against children armed with stones, along with thenew use of videos, made Israel subject to internationalcondemnation. This sort of condemnation, emanatingmore strongly from Europe than the United States, wasunlike any it had faced in countering militant attacks ofthe Palestinian ghters over the border in Lebanon, oras the target of terrorist aircraft hijackings in the periodfrom 1969 to about 1974.

The Muslim Brotherhood had advocated dawa,which is the reform and Islamization of society andthought; `adala (social justice); and an emphasis onhakimiyya (the sovereignty of God, as opposed totemporal rule). Due to the severe repression of theMuslim Brotherhood in both Egypt and Jordan, thePalestinian Ikhwan were inuenced, or even restrained

by the parent organization, to support da`wa rather thanmilitant jihad (or jihad by the sword48). HAMAS brokewith the previous tactical thinking of the Palestinian


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Yasin reprinted the last volume of Sayyid Qutbsmonumental Fi Dhilal al-Quran, a nontraditional tafsir,

or explanation and interpretation of the art of theQuran, with funds from the Jam`iyah. In this way, hewas able to introduce Qutb (d. 1966) now known inthe West primarily as a radical martyr, executed byEgypts President Nasir, as a revolutionary ghtingfor justice and as a scholar of the highest standing50because of the subject matter (the study of the Quran)and his sophisticated treatment. The Mujama`/mosque-building/charitable phase of HAMAS wasalso successful due to its international connections.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan was able todeliver aid from Arab countries and scholarships forpromising students.51 While the Israelis were crackingdown on the PLO, religious and charitable organizationsin the occupied territories encountered somewhat less

interference until 1977. The number of mosques underIkhwan authority doubled and offered kindergartens,Quran classes, and free circumcisions on certain days.The Ikhwan paid for the accompanying celebrationsfor circumcisions, and mobile medical units providedlow cost or free services.52 As described above, HAMASmoved actively into the areas of labor representation,education, professional associations, and throughoutall sectors of Palestinian society in Gaza and also in theWest Bank.

Various gures and their connections with theIkhwan in Egypt were key to HAMAS emergence,and so, too, was the degree of repression inside Israeli jails. Israeli journalist Amira Hass writes that tensof thousands of Palestinians came to know Israelis

through the experience of prisons and detentioncamps.53 Palestinians were often held for 2 to 4 monthsor more without being charged, and were subjected toharsh interrogations, including torture.54 As prisoners


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tried to unite to obtain radios, legally mandated visits,and then later other concessions by going on hunger

strikes since 1971, the Israeli authorities rst physicallyseparated them in different locations, and, later, moreeffectively divided them by providing employmentwithin prison to some but not others. The Islamizationof Palestinian society ongoing outside of the prisonwalls began to be replicated inside as well.

The impetus to opposition was fostered in a differentway by the nationalist-religious Israeli coalition inpower from 1977. This government promoted settle-ment activity in the West Bank among which a Jewishgroup with extreme messianic views, the Gush Emunim,were important. One focus of such right wing groupswas on symbols of Judaism, and new sources of conicterupted where these symbols conicted with Muslimclaims, for instance at the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple

Mount site in Jerusalem; the Haram al-Ibrahimi mosquein Hebron; and elsewhere. Two Muslims were killed in1982 at the Haram al-Sharif, and a group tried to blowup the site in 1984. Another Jewish group threatened todestroy other Muslim shrines, and two students weremurdered at the Islamic University of Hebron.55 Thiscaused more identication with religious-nationalistcauses, certainly seen later after the massacre ofMuslims at the al-Ibrahimi mosque, which sparkedHAMAS rst suicide attacks, and when Ariel Sharonbrought troops onto the Haram al-Sharif.

The Palestinian diaspora was also affected by thegrowth of the new Islamist thinking. The PalestinianIkhwan student movement in Kuwait was inspired bysuch non-Ikhwan gures as Shaykh Hasan Ayyub.56

Palestinian politics have played out in studentmovements featuring strong factionalism betweenFatah and the Popular Committees, for instance, and


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In February 1988, the Brotherhood granted formalrecognition to HAMAS as a result of a key meeting

in Amman, Jordan, involving the spiritual guide ofthe Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Khalifa; Ibrahim Ghosheh, the HAMASspokesperson and Jordanian representative; MahmudZahar, a surgeon; al-Rantisi, a West Bank representa-tive; Jordanian parliament members; and the hospitaldirector. In 1988, HAMAS issued its now infamousCharter, which it no longer cites or refers to. Thisdocument condemns world Zionism and the efforts toisolate Palestine, and has been exhaustively discussedby scholar Andrea Nsse along with HAMAS ideasas expressed in Filastin al-Muslima, a journal producedoutside of the territories.59 Another important source ofHAMAS positions and ideas is to be found in its bayanat(bayans or ofcial announcements) which, unlike the

journal, come from within the occupied territoriesand illustrate the centrality of the First Intifadha tothe emerging HAMAS. Other earlier comprehensivepresentations of HAMAS ideas are explained inacademic publications. Some of HAMAS earlier ideaswhich remain relevant have now undergone signicantchange or nuance. These are:

HAMAS will bring about a return to the trueIslam. (This implies an evolution carried outby Islamists rather than the return to thepast.) However, the nationalist struggle forthe fatherland (watan) is an integral part of thepath toward the true Islam. An Islamic state inPalestine will be a victory for the entire Muslimummah.60

HAMAS is the true heir of the historic IslamistShaykh Qassam movement because it is populist


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(and militant), in contrast with the ineffective,compromising politics of the Palestinian elite.61

Israel was entrenching itself and its land-grabbing policies with the wave of Sovietimmigration that brought about one millionnew Jewish immigrants to Israel.62

HAMAS, despite the claim of brotherhood in thenationalist struggle, disputed the PLOs rightto solely represent the Palestinian people. Itadopted an argument made by many, includingZiad Abu Amr, that indicts the hierarchicalPLO leadership and its disconnect with theterritories.63

The Charter, which was the rst written effort toexpress HAMAS goals, was issued in 1988 and hasbeen sharply criticized for its anti-Jewish and anti-

Zionist statements. It incorporates Hasan al-Bannasstatement that Israel would eventually be swept away(as other nations have risen and fallen before it).

Khalid Mish`al, the current leader of HAMAS,claims that the Charter should not be regarded asthe fundamental ideological frame of reference fromwhich the movement takes its positions.64 Andanother important HAMAS leader, Ibrahim Ghosheh,has explained that the Charter is not sacred, itsarticles are subject to review.65 More importantthan the Charter to our analysis might be the HAMASdocument, This is What We Struggle For,66 or thedocument, The Islamic Resistance Movement issued in2000.67

The latter traces HAMAS history, expressing the

view that the Palestinian peoples role, particularly amilitary role, is central to the struggle. In contrast, therole of Arab governments has decreased ever since the


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defeat of their armies in 1967. The past experiences ofthe Ikhwan both in military and da`wa activities are

outlined, along with the historical phases of HAMAS.The movement has rejected negotiation with Israel (incontrast to the PLO) and garnered opposition in thepost-Oslo period as it retaliated against Israel for thatcountrys assassination of Yahya Ayash. Yet HAMAShas adapted strategically and politically.

Its dened enemy is the Zionist Project (not Jews),and it believes that liberation of Palestine depends ona Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic circle.68 That liberationwill be accomplished by military means, but civilianZionists are not targets, only military Zionists are.However, civilians might inadvertently be hit or maybe targeted only in retaliation for the enemys targetingof Palestinian civilians.69

HAMAS also expressed ambiguity toward the

West generally, and the United States because of itsunquestioning and seemingly unconditional supportto Israel. For some years, HAMAS journal alsoincluded articles about Western fears of Islam (whatis now called Islamophobia). These, they maintained,had arisen from a certain historical arrogance wherebythe West rejected the idea that Islam formed the basisfor Western civilization.70 At one time, it would nothave been necessary to explain that Islamic civilizationexpressed a commitment religiously and legally tothe monotheism shared with the West (Christianityand Judaism); political ideas of the perfect society andform of rule inspired by Plato; and that it was a well ofsynthesis, in which Hellenic, Byzantine, Arab, Persian,Indian, and other intellectual, cultural, artistic, scien-

tic, mathematical, and medical progress was madewhile Europe was in the Dark Ages. It was trans-mitted back to the West in translations of the Arabic


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works of Avicenna (Ibn Sina, who inuenced St. ThomasAquinas) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd). This idea, by the

way, is not an Islamist eccentricity; the great historianMarshall Hodgson wrote that in conceptualizing worldhistory, one could divide the world into four parts, andthat Europe, or the West, and the Middle East wereclosest in their philosophical inuences, monotheism,and culture (the Muslim scholars developed and gonebeyond the Hellenic and Indic legacies).71

Islamists have long accepted the principles ofthe French Revolution,72 but view the Wests lack ofsupport for democratization where Islamists werestrong, or prevailed as in Algeria, Egypt, and Palestineafter 2006, as hypocritical. HAMAS, then and now,denies the clash of civilization thesis that became morewell-known through Samuel Huntington, and alsoimportantlythe Al-Qaidist proposal that Muslims

must wage jihad against the West.HAMAS has also been accused of seeking to

impose an Islamic order in which Arab Christianswould be second-class citizens, as would women.Clashes concerning behavior, and what we could calla vigilante reaction by HAMAS cadres, did take placeagainst bars and wine shops owned by Christians and,years previously, in attacks by youth on women notwearing hijab or when in April 2005 gunmen killeda woman in her ances car and beat him, whichgreatly embarrased the HAMAS leadership, whichdecried these incidents.73 These actions undercut theleaderships position that it respected and protectedwomen and minorities, its argument that PalestinianChristians are as poorly treated by Israelis as Palestinian

Muslims,74 and that Palestinian unity is required.By 2004, lower-level cadres fervor against bars

and wine shops had been replaced with a policy of


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actively protecting Christian residents of Ramallah,and including them on HAMAS political lists.75 After

HAMAS take-over of Gaza, order was imposed onsalast groups who had more extreme views, like theArmy of Islam.

With HAMAS electoral victory, media interest inChristian and womens reactions was kindled, andshowed that some prominent Palestinian Christians are justiably uncomfortable with the historical conceptof the ahl al-dhimma, the protected minorities underan Islamic state,76 or with Islamist stances on publicvirtue and morality. But HAMAS constant assertionis that Islamic rule will not be forced on Palestinians.77Christians were supported by HAMAS in Ramallah,for example. And although the hijab is ubiquitous inGaza, some women claim they feel secure movingaround without it.

The only woman in the HAMAS formed cabinetwas, predictably, the Minister of Womens Affairs,Myriam Saleh, who has stated:

We assure all women that we will not force anybody towear the hijab . . . we only present our ideas by suggestionand with good intention. The majority of Palestinianwomen wear the hijab with full conviction and without

coercion from anyone.

78

Much more could be said about the competitionbetween HAMAS-sponsored womens organizationsand those that emerged from the other secularist orLeft elements of the PLO. However, HAMAS and itsfemale representatives have produced a more maturediscourse as time has gone on,79 in a way not dissimilar

to Hizbullahs approach to womens issues.


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Relations with the PLO-Fatah and the PeaceProcesses.

During the course of the rst Intifadha, morePalestinians than ever before severed ties with Israelto the degree that they could. This went along witha call for self-sufciency as with Intifadha farms,raising produce, chickens, and dairy cows, andboycotting Israeli products, refusing to pay taxes,and in merchants closing of their stores. HAMASpragmatism in limiting some of these demands on thepopulation was paralleled in its limited and calculateduse of jihad. As the Madrid peace conference of 1991was held, HAMAS military activity increased. Thisreoccurred when Israelis killed Palestinian civilians(the circumstance that HAMAS rationalizes as fard`ayn; that is, when jihad becomes a requisite individual

duty) and when, to punish HAMAS for kidnapping andkilling a border policemen, Israeli ofcials deported415 HAMAS and Islamic Jihad activists to Lebanonin December 1992, including leaders like Abd al-AzizRantisi.

Israel had wanted to decrease HAMAS recruitmentsuccesses within the prison system by exiling theseprisoners, and it hoped to do so permanently. Themove backred, as it brought world attention to theviolation of international law and the human rightsof the activists, who were stranded on the southernLebanese hillside of Marj al-Zuhur. There, instead ofbeing isolated in Israeli prisons, they received visitsfrom journalists, dignitaries, and Fatah representa-tives.80 The deportation also sparked HAMAS lead-

ers in Jordan to carry out attacks, and more activitycentered in the West Bank.


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According to some, the deportation followed anagreement between HAMAS and Iran.81 The Iranians

were unhappy with Arafats dtente with Israeland had, in fact, attacked the PLO ofces in Tehran.However, the degree of any Iranian relationship withHAMAS is greatly disputed. Israelis claim large-scaleIranian military and material support for HAMAS fromIran, but others point only to visits to Iran by HAMASand expressions of solidarity.

Oslo.

When the news of the Oslo Agreements broke,which essentially ended the rst Intifadha, the situationbecame much more difcult for HAMAS. Theirprinciples stated that the PLO could not any more claimto be the sole representative of the Palestinian people,

and thus had no right to enter into negotiations withIsrael without an indicator of the popular will. Further,they, like Khalid Mishal, hold that it is not up to Israelor the United States to force Palestinians to recognizeand submit to occupation via a recognition of Israelwhich amounted to an acceptance of Zionism.82HAMAStried unsuccessfully to unify those opposed to Osloand determined to continue its jihad. That meant bothdissension and negotiation with the PLO as it took onthe PA and was pressed by Israel to contain violence.

Over time, especially as the peace process faltered,there was increasing strife between Fatah and HAMAS.At the same time, ordinary Palestinians began tosupport HAMAS more strongly as the PA failed toprovide substantive and positive gains to show for the

trading of land and principles.


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By January 2006, HAMAS won a majority in thePAs general legislative elections. This advent brought

condemnation from Israel and ensued in a powerstruggle carried out in several stages with PA PresidentMahmud Abbas and the Fatah party. The United States,which has included HAMAS on an ofcial list of ter-rorist organizations for some years, and the EuropeanUnion (EU) boycotted the PA even though HAMASestablished a power-sharing government with Fatahby accepting Abbas presidency. The Palestinianpopulation and government were cut off from much-needed funds and services like electricity which arepaid and distributed through Israel. Meanwhile, vari-ous Fatah leaders, like Muhammad Dahlan, were fund-ed and supported to engage in violence againstHAMAS.83 Restrictions were placed on travel byHAMAS leaders like Ismail Haniya, who had toured

Arab and world capitals and raised funds in the post-election period. Haniya was forced to leave all the fundshe had raised behind at the Egyptian border when hereturned to Gaza. Israeli military attacks continued onGaza, despite its status of disengagement. HAMAShad to confront Dahlan, this force, and other PAghters, the government went without salaries, andthe population was cut off from aid.

A media campaign that continues to the presentwas waged against HAMAS in the West and in theIsraeli press. Israels hope was that the resulting chaoswould reestablish Fatahs control over leadership. Butapparently more than media efforts were waged againstHAMAS. It appears that a soft coup was planned, andthat forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas were to

be strengthened at the same time as HAMAS was tobe weakened. News of this plan appeared in the Arabpress at the end of April 2007 in a disputed document


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implicating a faction within the U.S. administrationand Arabs (Egyptian and Jordanian) who plotted to

bolster Abbas to the detriment of HAMAS in the wakeof the Mecca Agreement, forged between HAMAS andFatah, and its breakdown.84 This supported the Arabview that the United States had opposed Saudi Arabiasinitiative taken to end fratricide between HAMAS andFatah.

Finally, these events led to HAMAS decision topreempt Dahlans and Abbas efforts, in which itrouted the Fatah forces in Gaza in battles fought on June 13-14, 2007. Battles also took place in the WestBank. Forgotten was the fact that HAMAS had beenlegitimately elected but had agreed to a national unitygovernment. To punish them, Abbas red HAMASprime minister, declaring his intent to install a new(Fatah) government instead of the 3-month-old national

unity government.85

The result was two governments,one HAMAS-run in Gaza, and the other under Abbasin the West Bank, although HAMAS is strong enoughto challenge Fatahs authority in the West Bank shouldit wish to do so. HAMAS position was that it wouldseek national unity despite the unfair policies againstit.

Ziad Abu Amr explained the struggle in this way:If you have two brothers, put them into a cage, anddeprive them of basic essential needs for life; they willght.86 The struggle has in some ways simplied,but in other ways complicated, Israels approach toHAMAS. It refuses categorically to negotiate withHAMAS and meets exclusively with Abbas Fatah-drawn government. But this situation cannot continue

if there is to be any successful negotiation of the broaderconict.


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Revolutionary Resistance vs. Overwhelming Force(Means).

Israeli aircraft bombed the building where AhmadYasin was staying in September 2003, and 6 months lateron March 22, 2004, an Israeli helicopter gunship redair-to-ground Hellfre missiles at him as he was beingwheeled out of an early morning prayer service, killingeight others, and injuring another dozen people. Theinternational community condemned the assassination;however, Ariel Sharon had directly approved theorders to kill Yasin. Thousands protested;87 however,the policy of targeted killings continued with al-Rantisis death on April 17, 2004, and with the deathsof other HAMAS leaders.

Israeli authorities did not distinguish betweenHAMAS carefully separated political and military

wings, consequently many HAMAS moderates werekilled or jailed along with those who could be caughtin the secret military wing. However, it was well-known that the political and military wings of HAMAShad long since been separated and were sufcientlyindependent of each other as to adopt very differentpolitical positions. For example, they clashed over thebenet of political participation when the opportunityrst presented itself in 1996, and some HAMAS guresran as independents.88

HAMAS use of violence is its response to what itsees as state terror on the part of Israel. For that reason,it allowed attacks on Israeli military, but not on civiliansin acts of revenge. This principle fell apart with theadvent of suicide bombings, often an individual, self-

recruited action. HAMAS has disallowed such actionsduring truces, although some other Palestinian groupshave enacted them.


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In summary, what is needed is to alter both themeans employed and the ends sought of both sides in

the conict.

Ends.

Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have a uniedposition towards the other. Each group is socializedin particular ways, through the educational system,employment experiences; and for Israelis, in themilitary, in political parties, families, and bureaucracies.To understand the divergent views of the conict andhow each side views its goals or ends, one must lookmore deeply within the two communities.

According to Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling,Israelis had an image of themselves as a uniedsociety under an earlier Zionist self-sacricing, land-

working vision. This vision is no longer accurate, andtoday he describes seven cultures, all of which havebeen impacted by the increasing role of religion andmilitarism. These seven cultures are: the previouslyhegemonic secular Askhenazi upper middle class, thenational religious [ultra-religious who are nationalists],the traditionalist Mizrahim (Orientals) [meaning Jewsfrom the broader Middle East, Central Asia, India],the Orthodox religious, the Arabs, the new Russianimmigrants, and the Ethiopians.89 A cultural code of Jewishness (ranging from very devout to aetheistic)and a nonsecular system are the only commonality forsix of these groupings, and there are distinct limits toIsraels democracy as Arabs have no real legitimacyin this schema. Security, Kimmerling contends,

has become a civil religion in Israel, signaling thesubordination of the nonmilitary to the military. Andwithin the six Jewish cultures, he sees three different


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orientations to the enemy (Arabs and Muslims),these being securitist (bitchonist), conict-oriented, and

compromise or peace-oriented.90

The securitist view is that Israel would be doomed

by a major military defeat. The state owes theIsraeli people security from this fate. Both war- andpeacemaking are funct

Documents

Hamas and Israel Conflicting Strategies of Group-based Politics Pub894