Bringing Back the Palestinian State: Hamas between Government and Resistance

Abstract

Most of the literature on Hamas that focuses on its role as both a government and a resistance movement has emphasized how the organization either is conditioned historically to being a sociopolitical and military entity or is treading a path of de-radicalization. Emphasizing the limitations of such analyses, this article proposes a recalibration of the manner in which we study Palestinian politics in general and the Islamic Resistance in particular. To this effect, and drawing on reflections from fieldwork experiences in the Gaza Strip, it claims that Hamas today isn't necessarily engaging in a praxis of political behavior of its own creation but rather is living a Palestinian vernacular condition mandated by the Oslo Accords. That said, and within this condition, political behavior not only is informed by the state as an aspiration but also by the state as a model and inspiration, as it marks and informs the conduct of political factions. Then, by proposing the existence of a Palestinian state in oscillation between being an aspiration and an inspiration, it is hoped that it would allow for new parameters and a vocabulary for understanding Palestinian politics as more than a ‘problem’ waiting to be solved. Rather, Palestinian politics emerge as a site for reconsidering the manner in which the politics of liberation movements can be understood.

Keywords::

• Fatah
• Gaza Strip
• Government
• Hamas
• Oslo Accords
• Palestinian Authority
• resistance
• state

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Danish Institute in Damascus and the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen for funding the fieldwork that resulted in this article. I would also like to thank the following individuals for their invaluable assistance during the preparation of the article: Jehad Abu Salem, Dr Oren Barak, Dr Rune Bennike, Lau Blaxekjaer, Salem Dandan, Dr Saad Eddin Ebrahim, Dr Mohammad Gomaa, Dr Lene Hansen, Dr Sune Haugbølle, Saeed Ismail, Dr Christian Lund, Dr Yoram Meital, Dr Cecilia Milwertz, Dr Saeed Okasha, Dr Mette Fog Olwig, Dr Noel Parker, Dr Jakob Skovgaard Petersen, Dr Uzi Rabi, Omar Shaban, Bassam Silwady, Dr Gamal Abdel Gawad Soltan, Ahmed Sukker, Ayca Uygur and Dr Morten Valbjørn.

Notes

¹ The title of this article is a ‘play’ on P. B. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer & T. Skocpol (1985) Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).

² The Gaza Strip and the West Bank both have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. The 1993 Oslo Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) provided for mutual recognition and a diplomatic process that created the Palestinian Authority and was supposed to lead to self-governance. Since 2000, however, the diplomatic process essentially has been frozen.

³ Author interview, Gaza City, June 2013.

⁴ Owing to Fatah's boycott.

⁵ Y. Sayigh (2007) Inducing a Failed State in Palestine, Survival, 49(3), p. 13.

⁶ The term ‘resistance’ will be used as euphemism for an armed struggle.

⁷ Hamas as a social actor is represented by its social service operations, broadly categorized as educational (kindergarten, schools, enriching group activities, summer camps and universities), medical (clinics and hospitals), religious (mosques and Quran memorizing institutes) and welfare (distributing financial and material aid, especially during economic crises, Muslim holidays and during Ramadan). See: E. Pascovich (2012) Social-Civilian Apparatuses of Hamas, Hizballah and Other Activist Islamic Organizations, Digest of Middle East Studies, 21(1), p. 130.

⁸ J. Gunning (2007) Hamas in Politics, p. vi (London: Hurst & Company).

⁹ P. Caridi (2012) Hamas: From Resistance to Government, p. 36 (New York: Seven Stories Press).

¹⁰ Author interview, Cairo, January 2013.

¹¹ K. Shiqaqi (2006) The Palestinian Elections: Sweeping Victory, Uncertain Mandate, Journal of Democracy, 17(3), p. 127.

¹² A. Hamzawy & N. J. Brown (2008) A Boon or a Bane for Democracy, Journal of Democracy, 19(3), p. 50.

¹³ Sayigh, p. 13.

¹⁴ A. Hovdenak (2009) Hamas in Transition: The Failure of Sanctions, Democratization, 16(1), p. 69.

¹⁵ K. E. Wiegand (2010) Bombs and Ballots: Governance by Islamist Terrorist and Guerrilla Groups, p. 136 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Group).

¹⁶ Caridi, p. 36

¹⁷ Building on the works of M. Levitt (2004) Hamas from Cradle to Grave, Middle East Quarterly, XI(1); A. Knudsen (2005) Crescent and Sword: The Hamas Enigma, Third World Quarterly, 26(8); S. Mishal & A. Sela (2000) The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence and Coexistence (New York: Columbia University Press); S. Roy (2000) The Crisis Within: The Struggle for Palestinian Society, Critique, 9(17); M. Hatina (1999) Hamas and the Oslo Accords: Religious Dogma in a Changing Political Reality, Mediterranean Politics, 4(3).

¹⁸ J. L. Gleis & B. Berti (2012) Hezbollah and Hamas: A Comparative Study, p. 3 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press); Gunning, p. 272.

¹⁹ W. J. Haboub (2012) Demystifying the Rise of Hamas, Journal of Developing Societies, 28(1), p. 75.

²⁰ Gunning, p. 144.

²¹ Pascovich, p. 133.

²² S. Roy (2011) Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector, p. 15 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

²³ B. Milton-Edwards (2008) The Ascendance of Political Islam: Hamas and consolidation in the Gaza Strip Third World Quarterly, 29(8), p. 1591.

²⁴ Caridi, p. 336.

²⁵ In the lead-up to the first PLC elections in 1996 and despite Hamas vehemently opposing the Oslo Accords, its iconic founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin, in a letter from prison in October 1993, initially urged members to participate in the electoral process, according to Z. Chenab (2007), Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of Militants, Martyrs and Spies, p. 107 (London: I. B. Taurus). This had an immense impact on the Hamas cadre, with Ismail Haniyeh deciding to contest the elections on the basis of ‘a wide support base, which enabled them to take political risks’ (Gunning, p. 110). Nevertheless, in the face of a lack of unanimous support within the group Haniyeh withdrew his candidacy, thus ensuring that the Islamic Resistance presented a unified front in opposing the PLC elections (Gunning, p. 111).

²⁶ M. I. Jensen (2009) The Political Ideology of Hamas. A Grassroots Perspective, p. 147 (London: I.B. Tauris).

²⁷ L. D. Lybarger (2007) Identity and Religion in Palestine: The Struggle between Islamism and Secularism in the Occupied Territories, p. 3 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

²⁸ K. Hroub (2006) A ‘New Hamas’ through its New Documents, Journal of Palestine Studies, 35(4), p. 27.

²⁹ K. Hroub (2006) Hamas: A Beginner's Guide, p. 140 (London: Pluto Press).

³⁰ Hovdenak, p. 62.

³¹ B. Long (2010) The Hamas Agenda: How Has It Changed?, Middle East Policy, XVII(4), p. 133.

³² Long, p. 140.

³³ This categorization of the intellectual impulse surrounding studies on Hamas is adopted from M. Hulme's work on climate change (2009) Why We Disagree on Climate Change, p. xxviii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

³⁴ This tendency was further emphasized when, during the 1990s, the Islamic Resistance established separate social, political and military wings. (Wiegand, p. 137)

³⁵ Y. Sayigh (1997) Armed Struggle and State Formation, Journal of Palestine Studies, 26(4), p. 24. (Originally cited in: al-Usbu’ al-Arabu, January 22, 1968. Text in Palestinian Arab Documents 1968 (1970), p. 27 (Beirut: IPS).

³⁶ B. Milton-Edwards & A. Crooke (2004) Elusive Ingredient: Hamas and the Peace Process, Journal of Palestine Studies, 33(4), p. 50.

³⁷ Author interview, Gaza City, May 2013.

³⁸ R. Gaess (1997) Interview with Mousa Abu Marzook, Middle East Policy, V(2), p. 117.

³⁹ Author interview, Gaza Strip, June 2013.

⁴⁰ The author was in attendance in the audience during the ceremony at Al-Aqsa University, Gaza City, May 2013.

⁴¹ Gunning, p. 177.

⁴² Of course, our ability to understand Hamas on the basis of this framework is largely owed to the fact that the organization now encompasses a highly institutional socio-civilian wing and military operations without any convincing evidence of it renouncing the latter.

⁴³ Author interview, Gaza City, June 2013.

⁴⁴ Author interview, Gaza City, May 2013.

⁴⁵ Author interview, Gaza City, June 2013.

⁴⁶ Author interview, Gaza City, May 2013.

⁴⁷ Y. Sayigh (2010) Hamas Rule in Gaza: Three Years On, Middle East Brief, 41, p. 1.

⁴⁸ Y. Shain, & G. Sussman (1998) From Occupation to State-building: Palestinian Political Society Meets Palestinian Civil Society, Government and Opposition, 33(3), p. 275.

⁴⁹ Shain & Sussman, p. 275.

⁵⁰ See: Y. Sayigh (1997) Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement: 1949–1993 (New York: Oxford University Press); and Y. Sayigh (1997) Armed Struggle and State Formation, Journal of Palestine Studies, 26(4).

⁵¹ As often claimed by the organization's leaders.

⁵² L. Abu-Lughod (1991) Writing Against Culture, in: R. G. Fox (ed.) Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, p. 475 (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press).

⁵³ J. Comaroff & J. Comaroff (2005) The Struggle Between the Constitution and ‘Things African’, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 7(3), p. 300.

⁵⁴ See Arafat's speech at the UN. Text of entire speech available at http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/pal/arafat_gun_and_olive_branch.htm, accessed September 3, 2013.

⁵⁵ Text of entire declaration available at http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/6EB54A389E2DA6C6852560DE0070E392, accessed November 3, 2013.

⁵⁶ F. Fanon (1963) The Wretched of the Earth, p. 3 (New York: Grove Press).

⁵⁷ Fanon, p. 6.

⁵⁸ R. J. C. Young (2005) Fanon and the turn to armed struggle in Africa, Wasafiri, 20(44), p. 34.

⁵⁹ Author interview, Cairo, January 2013.

⁶⁰ G. Hage (2003) Comes a Time We Are All Enthusiasm: Understanding Palestinian Suicide Bombers in Time of Exigophobia, Public Culture, 15(1), p. 70.

⁶¹ Hage, p. 74.

⁶² Y. Sayigh (1997) Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement: 1949–1993, p. 8 (New York: Oxford University Press).

⁶³ Sayigh, Armed Struggle and State Formation, pp. 20–21.

⁶⁴ Author interview, Gaza City, June 2013.

⁶⁵ See: A. Tamimi (2007) Hamas: A History from Within, pp. 275–277 (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press).

⁶⁶ Author interview, Gaza City, June 2013.

⁶⁷ Author interview, Gaza City, May 2013.

⁶⁸ Author interview, Gaza City, May 2013.

⁶⁹ T. Skocpol (1985) Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research, in P. B. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer & T. Skocpol (eds) Bringing the State Back In, p. 28 (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press).

⁷⁰ Ibid, p. 3.

⁷¹ T. B. Hansen & F. Stepputat (2001) Introduction: States of Imagination, in T. B. Hansen & F. Stepputat (eds) States of Imagination. Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State, p. 8 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).

⁷² Hansen & Stepputat, p. 2.

⁷³ Ibid, p. 5.

⁷⁴ Ibid, p. 6.

⁷⁵ Ibid, p. 8.

⁷⁶ Ibid, p. 7.

⁷⁷ P. Abrams (1988) Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State (1977), Journal of Historical Sociology, 1(1), p. 82.

⁷⁸ C. Lund (2006) Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics, Development and Change, 37(4), p. 689.