Since its victory in the Palestinian legislative elections, the Hamas leadership has for the first time been allowed to participate in Palestinian foreign relations and internal problem solving with the Palestinian Authority. As the ruling party Hamas has had to offer solutions rather than slogans. However, the Hamas slogan of change and reform used during their election campaign has remained only ink on paper as living conditions have worsened and people’s choices decreased.
Seventeen months into this experiment, the situation has led to serious depression among the majority of Palestinians, according to opinion surveys, and many Palestinians that could, have chosen to immigrate. The political stagnation has gotten worse, the state of lawlessness deepened, and the internal situation has seen unprecedented clashes between factions. Needless to say, this experiment will have an impact on the political future of Hamas and its internal dynamics and beliefs.
In its inception, Hamas was not a genuine product of Palestinian political culture or the dynamics of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Rather, it was the outcome of the political state of the region and the politics of the Cold War that attempted to weaken Soviet leverage. Hamas was conceived amidst the emergence of a stronger and well-organized political Islam, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi movement and the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran.
Thus, the Hamas Movement grew up in the incubator of the Arab political Islam that gained both political and financial support to advance a regional and international agenda. The impact of events taking place inside Palestine was almost irrelevant compared to external. events such as the Afghanistan War, the growth of financially backed Islamist groups in the Gulf, the flourish of religious conservative rhetoric in Arab media, the growing concern of the Shiite revolution and those who sought to counter it, and the West’s political support for the leaders and activities of political Islam during the Cold War.
However, Hamas did not emerge out of a Palestinian political vacuum or absence of resistance dynamics. It appeared while the Palestinian national movement was enjoying popular support both internally and externally. Its appearance seemed to be aimed at confusing and obstructing the Palestinian national movement rather than supporting it.
Initially, Hamas was more concerned with religious, social and cultural issues than politics. It even attempted to present a previously unseen cultural model that focused on the establishment of an Islamic state in Palestine. This model challenged one of the most important achievements of the Palestinian national movement - religious tolerance.
Hamas’s emergence into the Palestinian political scene was related to a desire of its leadership to confront the Palestinian national movement, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), by presenting Hamas as its substitute. Hamas accused the Palestinian national movement of not carrying the “banner of Islam” and its literature focused on condemning the PLO, its leadership, intellectuals, and policies, more than Israeli occupation.
This confrontation was a gift to Israel and some Arab governments. To Israel, it meant the existence of a substitute for the PLO that would weaken its stance in the international community and keep its officials occupied with internal disputes. For some Arab regimes, it meant pressuring the PLO to stop presenting itself as a model of freedom, democracy, and progressive thought that might inspire their opposition groups. Hamas presented a Palestinian model that was not qualified to engage the world and, thus, was seen as less of a threat.
Hamas’s leadership insisted on confronting the Palestinian national movement at important turning points in the history of the Palestinians. In the first intifada, it refused to join the Unified Leadership of the Intifada (UNLI) and insisted on issuing statements and instructions separately, confusing, and often harming, the popular movement. When the Palestinian Authority was established after the Oslo agreements, it rejected any Palestinian efforts to construct a Palestinian reality through building basic modernized infrastructure and Palestinian institutions. It even insisted on weakening the central authority, using resistance as a justification.
Every time the Palestinians were close to an agreement with the Israelis, Hamas would carry out suicide bombings or launch makeshift rockets to thwart political progress. These actions excused Israel from its commitments, as exemplified by the events following the 2002 Arab summit in Beirut where the Arab Peace Initiative was adopted.
Israel’s intensive campaign of targeted assassination against the political leadership of Hamas, including spiritual leader Ahmad Yassin, and the absence of reaction from Arab countries and the international community led the movement to rethink its activities, including the decision not to respond to those assassinations and to approve a unilateral truce.
In late 2005, Hamas decided to participate in the Palestinian Authority through elections for reasons that were unrelated to a core change in the thinking and objectives of the movement. The absence of Yasser Arafat from the political scene and the weakening of the Fatah movement after his death as well as Abu Mazen’s desire to hold democratic, free elections were among the reasons for their decision to participate. It also gave their political leaders an opportunity for a more public platform, and its members a legitimacy apart from its stated objective of resistance and military struggle against Israel.
However, the thought and activity of the movement have remained a burden on the struggle of the Palestinians’ goal of ending Israeli occupation. Though it was not ready to play a leading role in the Palestinian government, Hamas decided to do so by adopting a trial and error approach. The result is more than a year of failures and increased intra-Palestinian tension and conflict.
Hamas’s approval of the vulnerable Mecca agreement and the formation of a national unity government indicate that it has learned some lessons. It is not yet clear to what extent this translates into serious change in the ideology of the movement or if it is simply trying to control the chaos that allows it to remain in power for now. Either way it remains an extra burden on the Palestinian national movement.
* Emad Omar is a specialist in conflict resolution and media based in Amman, Jordan.
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