[Reader-list] Behind the Myths about Hamas / Deepa Kumar

[Sanjay Kak]

Behind the Myths about Hamas
by Deepa Kumar


http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/kumar210109.html
21 Jan 2009

Most mainstream accounts of the Palestinian Hamas organization present
it as a bunch of rabid fanatics, bent on violence and motivated by an
irrational hatred of Jews and the state of Israel.  This view is
reflected both in the mainstream media and in many books published on
the topic.

When we separate propaganda from reality, however, what we find is a
group that has taken on the mantle of national resistance against
Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

Hamas describes itself like this: "The Islamic Resistance Movement
(Hamas) is a Palestinian national liberation movement that struggles
for the liberation of the Palestinian occupied territories and for the
recognition of the legitimate rights of Palestinians."1

In its manifesto in the lead-up to the 2006 elections, it stated: "Our
Palestinian people are still living through the phase of national
liberation; they have the right to endeavor to regain their rights and
end the occupation using all available means, including armed
resistance."2

It is because of this commitment to the national liberation struggle
-- and the recognition among Palestinians that Hamas, whatever else it
may stand for, refuses to concede on the question of resisting Israeli
repression -- that the organization has won wide support.

Hamas began to gain a hearing in the late 1980s, when the secular
nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), dominated by the
Fatah faction led by Yasser Arafat, gave up on the long-term goal of
liberating all of historic Palestine -- and followed a path of
negotiations that resulted in the Oslo Accords of 1993.

The culmination of Hamas' growing support was the January 2006
elections to the Palestine Legislative Assembly, in which Hamas won a
majority.

The reason for this victory lies not only in the failure of Oslo and
the continued brutality of the Israeli occupation, but also mass
disillusionment with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.  Hamas'
steadfast opposition to occupation and constant criticisms of Fatah's
compromises, combined with its network of social service and charity
agencies, bolstered its image not only among religious Muslims, but
also among secularists and Christians.

Despite its victory in free and fair elections, the U.S. and Israel
sought to undermine and destroy Hamas.  Israel suspended the transfer
of tax revenues collected from Palestinians in the amount of $50
million a month.   This began the strangulation of Gaza and set off a
humanitarian crisis.

While the public strategy involved the collective punishment of the
people of Gaza for electing Hamas, Israel and its U.S. ally also
undertook a secret operation to overthrow Hamas, funneling arms and
money to Fatah fighters to enable them to carry out a coup in Hamas'
base in Gaza.  Hamas won the battle for Gaza, and Fatah was routed.
Yet mainstream accounts of the conflict present Hamas as having
launched a coup in order to come to power.

Israel continued to step up its pressure on the people of Gaza,
cutting off much-needed supplies, electricity, and essentials and
launching a military assault late last month.

The siege and the latest invasion of Gaza have caused untold
suffering, death, and misery.  But they have not accomplished Israel's
aim of fomenting a Palestinian opposition ready to topple Hamas.  On
the contrary, the group continued to gain influence since the 2006
elections.

The reason for this is simple.  When a people lose their livelihood,
their homes, their loved ones, and their dignity at the hands of an
occupying power, they resist -- and in this case, the resistance
movement is led by Hamas.

If elections were to be held in occupied Palestine, Hamas would likely
win again.  This is not because all the people of Palestine agree with
Hamas' Islamist principles -- and not at all because Palestinians are
anti-Semitic fanatics -- but because people living under inhuman
conditions imposed by an occupying power will turn to organizations
that give voice to their aspirations for liberation.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hamas was founded in 1987 in the context of the first Palestinian
uprising, or Intifada.  Organizationally, it comes out of the Muslim
Brotherhood, established in 1945 in Jerusalem.

The Brotherhood was formed as a social welfare organization involved
in cultural and social activities.  It consciously stayed away from
the arena of politics.  Even after the formation of the state of
Israel and the war of 1948, the Brotherhood maintained this approach.
It operated on the premise that its primary goal was to Islamize
society -- only secondarily would it "prepare the generations for
battle" with Israel down the road.

In 1948, when Israel took over and occupied 78 percent of historic
Palestine, the movement was fractured and split between the West Bank
and Gaza.  The Brotherhood developed in different ways depending on
the context.

In the West Bank, which came under Jordanian control, it flourished
and became a loyal opposition to Jordan's Hashemite regime.  However,
in Gaza, under Egyptian administration, its fate was similar to the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which was persecuted by the ruling party.
 Under these conditions, it had to go underground and operate in
secrecy.

In 1967, when Israel annexed the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the two
Muslim Brotherhoods were brought together.  This fused the clandestine
and more militant tactics of the Gaza wing with the moderate tactics
of the Jordanian one.

>From 1967, the organization sought to expand its influence in a number
of ways.  Between 1967 and 1975, it launched a campaign to build
mosques throughout the Occupied Territories.  In this, it had the
support of Israel, which had started to view the Brotherhood as an
ally against the secular nationalist PLO, which dominated Palestinian
politics.3

This dovetailed with a larger strategy adopted by the US in the region
where, directly or indirectly through Saudi Arabia, it supported and
funded Islamist groups as a bulwark against secular nationalist
parties.4

In 1973, the Islamic Center (al-Mujamma al-islami) was founded in the
Gaza Strip.  The Mujamma, whose goal was to Islamize Gazan society,
set up schools, medical clinics, day care centers, youth and sports
clubs, and other social and communal forums tied to the mosque.

In Gaza, the number of mosques increased from 77 in 1967 to 200 by
1989.5  The combination of mosques and social welfare organs would
prove to be crucial means for propagating the movement's message and
for recruiting cadres, at a time when the secular movements largely
ignored these spheres.

Nevertheless, the Islamists remained marginal players on the political
scene.  Up until the late 1980s, the Fatah movement and the PLO
dominated Palestinian politics, with other more left-wing nationalist
organizations vying for influence.

Once again seeking to counter the secular nationalists, the Israeli
government recognized and formally licensed the Mujamma in 1978.  For
Israel, now led by the conservative Likud Party, the Islamists'
hostility to the left made them useful allies.  At times, Israel even
funded these forces.

The Mujamma, in turn, routinely clashed with secular nationalists and
far left forces.  In 1980, it set fire to the Palestinian Red Crescent
office, which was a stronghold of the left.  After 1983, it engaged in
violent clashes with PLO members for control over the Islamic
University of Gaza.  The most bitter and violent confrontations were
with more far left groups, like the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine (PFLP).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In 1987, a popular Palestinian uprising, known as the Intifada,
erupted first in the Gaza Strip and then in the West Bank.  The Muslim
Brotherhood (in the form of the Mujamma movement) was posed with a new
reality that challenged its gradualist approach to Islamizing
Palestinian society.

Up to this point, the Brotherhood had strategically refrained from
direct political activity in the national arena, concentrating on its
social welfare organs.  But it now ran the risk of losing credibility
if it did not take part in the uprising.  Hamas was set up by the
leadership of the Brotherhood to respond to and participate in the
Intifada.

Even before the Intifada, a debate had been brewing between the
quietist and militant sections of the MB's membership.  As Khaled
Hroub, one of the most authoritative writers on Hamas, explains:

Internally and by the time of the Intifada, the rank and file of the
Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood was witnessing intense internal debate
on the passive approach to the Israeli occupation.  One [section]
pushed for change in policy toward confrontation with the occupation,
thus bypassing [the other section, which stood for the] old and
traditional thinking whose focus was on the Islamization of society
first. . .  When the Intifada erupted, the exponents of the
confrontational policy gained a stronger position.6

Hamas was the product of the pressure exerted by the more nationalist
and confrontationist section on the leadership of the Brotherhood.

Around this time, the PLO, which had previously relied on the strategy
of armed struggle to liberate all of historic Palestine, began to
gravitate towards a more compromised stance.  In particular, it
relinquished the long-term goal of liberating all of Palestine and
recognized the right of Israel to exist, and it opted for negotiations
over struggle to form a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip.

Many Palestinians held out hope that the Oslo peace process might
address the horrific conditions under which they were forced to live.
Yet by 2000, the sham of Oslo was exposed, leading to the second
Intifada.

Hamas was able to grow and gain influence because it rejected Oslo, by
holding on to a vision of liberating all of historic Palestine.  In
short, the weakness and wrong turns of secular nationalism and the
left created the opening for Hamas to grow.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hamas today is a different organization than the one that was founded in 1987.

For instance, its 1988 charter makes little effort to distinguish
between an anti-Zionist and an anti-Jewish stance.  Yet the experience
of fighting against the occupation and for national liberation
transformed the organization -- in 1990, it published a document
stating that its struggle was against Zionists and Zionism, and not
Jews and Judaism.

As Hroub wrote in 2000:
Hamas' doctrinal discourse has diminished in intensity since the
mid-1990s.  And references to its charter by its leaders have been
made rarely, if at all.  The literature, statements and symbols used
by Hamas have come to focus more and more on the idea that the core
problem is the multidimensional issue of usurpation of Palestinian
land, and the basic question is how to end the occupation.  The notion
of liberating Palestine has assumed greater importance than the
general Islamic aspect (my italics).7

This does not mean that Hamas has ceased to be an Islamist party.  Its
day-to-day activities still involve a strong religious dimension.  It
devotes time and energy to educating its membership in its particular
interpretation of Islam, to leading daily prayers, and to fighting
"vice" in the streets.

At certain times, Hamas members have intervened to stop what the
organization defines as "immoral" behavior, such as partying, drinking
alcohol, not wearing the hijab, mixed swimming, and so forth.  One
such incident occurred in 2005 in Gaza, when a Palestinian women was
killed and her fiancé beaten up after they were found in his car at a
beach.

Hamas' position on women is reactionary; it sees them as primarily
responsible for the home and family life.  While it has repeatedly
insisted that it will not force women to wear the hijab -- and has,
for the most part, carried through on this -- there is an indirect
pressure exerted on women to follow Hamas' views on veiling, if they
wish to seek their help.

Women can join Hamas, but their realms of activity are limited to
charities and schools.  They are largely invisible, and not one woman
has occupied a leadership position in the organization since 1987.
While a limited number of women have carried out suicide attacks, that
task is assigned primarily to men.

Nevertheless, it bears underling that Hamas is not as reactionary as
the Taliban.  It doesn't prohibit women from operating outside the
family sphere.  Thirteen of the 66 Hamas candidates who ran for
election in 2006 were women.  Yet despite seven winning their seats,
only one woman was included in the cabinet -- and, predictably, she
was put in charge of women's affairs.

Hamas also differs from more fundamentalist Islamist parties in that
it accepts the concept of the nation state, rather than the ummah, a
religious community formation.  Its party structures are modeled on
Western ones, and its internal affairs are carried out in a more or
less democratic manner.  The leadership inside Palestine is elected
from within, and by the rank and file.  It is also not anti-science or
anti-technology.

Hamas exhibits all the contradictions of modern Islamist parties.  It
achieved prominence because of a political vacuum caused by the
collapse of secular nationalism and the left.  Yet given its politics
and class basis, it doesn't present a long-term solution to the
economic and political problems faced by the people who turn to it.

The class basis of Islamism is the middle class or the petty
bourgeoisie.  In general, this class does not have the social weight
necessary to bring the system to a standstill or force concessions
from powerful groups.

This problem is further compounded in the case of Hamas by the context
of occupation.  Hamas draws support from merchants, business people,
and the rich, but its cadre and leadership are drawn largely from the
educated middle classes or de-classed people in refugee camps.

This explains why Hamas vacillates between armed struggle and radical
pronouncements on the one hand, and ceasefires and concessions on the
other.  Ultimately, these strategies are a dead end.

Palestinian liberation will depend on support from outside the
Occupied Territories -- most obviously, from the region's working
classes, among whom massive sympathy and solidarity with the
Palestinian cause exists.

Israel's assault on Gaza stirred huge demonstrations around the world,
from Indonesia and Pakistan to South Africa and Europe -- with some of
the largest in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, and Turkey.

In Egypt, in particular, the working class has expressed both anger
against the neoliberal Mubarak regime and sympathy for the Palestinian
cause -- a revolt that toppled Mubarak would remove a crucial source
of complicity with Israel's occupation.

A strategy that offers hope for Palestinian liberation would connect
workers' struggles throughout the region to the fight for one secular,
democratic state in Palestine.  And that would lay the basis for a
lasting peace in the Middle East.



1  Khaled Hroub, Hamas: A Beginner's Guide, Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto
Press, 2006, p. 17.

2  Azzam Tamini, Hamas: A History from Within, Olive Branch Press, 2007, p. 294.

3  Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, New York:
Columbia University Press, 2000, p. 21.

4  See Robet Dreyfuss, Devil's Game: How the United States helped
Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, New York:Henry Holt and Company, 2005.

5  Mishal and Sela, p. 21.

6  Hroub, 2006, p. 13.

7  Khalid Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice, Institute for
Palestine Studies, 2000, p. 44.

________________________________
Deepa Kumar is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Rutgers
University.  She is currently working on a book on Political Islam, US
Foreign Policy, and the Media.