Within political and academic circles in the Western world, it is common to portray Islamic movements in categorical terms that utilise binary classifications marking real or imaginary social attributes, rather than relational patterns. Much of this perception derives from the violence accompanying Islamic religious fervour and the fanaticism marking some of its groups and regimes.
Hamas, an acronym of al-Harakat al-muqawama al-islamiyya, the Islamic resistance movement, did not escape this binary perception, often described solely as a movement identified with Islamic fundamentalism and suicide bombings. As declared in its charter, the objectives at the top of Hamas’s agenda are the liberation of Palestine through jihad, a holy war against Israel, establishing an Islamic state on its soil and reforming society in the spirit of true Islam. It is this Islamic vision, combined with its nationalist claims and militancy towards Israel, that accounts for the prevailing image of Hamas as a rigid movement, ready to pursue its goals at any cost, with no limits or constraints.
However, a close scrutiny of Hamas’s roots and its record since its establishment, at the outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation in 1987, reveals that, although Hamas has been reluctant to publicly compromise its ultimate objectives, it does not subordinate its activities and decisions to the officially held religious doctrine. Rather, it operates in a context of opportunities and constraints; conflicting interests; and cost-benefit considerations. Hamas is attentive to the fluctuating needs and desires of the Palestinian population and cognizant of power dynamics and political feasibility.
Moreover, despite the horrifying toll claimed by Hamas’s violence, it is essentially a social and political movement, providing extensive community services and responding constantly to political reality through bargaining and power brokering. Along this line, as Björn Brenner argues in Gaza Under Hamas, the movement has been reluctant to adhere to its religious dogma at any cost and so has tended to adopt political strategies that minimise the danger of rigidly adhering to principle, doctrine or ideology, ready to respond or adjust to fluid conditions without losing sight of ultimate objectives.
The preference of Hamas for composite strategies and compromise tactics over an ‘all or nothing’ policy is not exceptional in the history of Islamic communities. Since the boundaries between social, political, and religious duties and preferences are constantly shifting, political power, religious symbols, and social interests are always located in a particular context and in a nexus of social and cultural relationships.
The process of finding a workable compromise between doctrine and practice, ideas and interests, applies with equal force to Hamas. From Hamas’s point of view, as this book shows, the utility and advantages of pragmatic policy are quite clear. In fundamentalist movements, support is usually gained at the price of conformity, by publicly renouncing any tactic that could offset the group’s normative values. However, as one will notice, many policy devices that Hamas uses have enabled its leaders to manipulate normative rules in a pragmatic fashion. Hamas leaders have been able to move publicly from total moral commitment to a principle, whatever the cost, towards a more pragmatic bargaining posture that can serve as a basis for a workable compromise.
Indeed, much of Hamas’s politics can be explained in terms of its dogmas and practical needs. This interaction is manifested in the tension between fulfilment of the Islamic duty of jihad against Israel as the most effective means of political mobilisation, reviving the spirit of Palestinian national activism in an Islamic context, and the movement’s realistic considerations of political survival. Since the early months of the first Palestinian uprising, Hamas challenged the PLO’s status as the sole authentic representative of the Palestinian people. Hamas espoused an Islamic-nationalist doctrine instead of the PLO’s secular nationalism.
It is this Islamic ideology that shapes Hamas’s political strategy as well as the rules and norms of its envisioned Palestinian state and society. However, a close examination of Hamas’s decision-making processes shows that they have been markedly balanced, combining realistic considerations with traditional beliefs and arguments, emphasising visionary goals but also immediate practical daily needs. They have demonstrated rigidity within the formal Hamas doctrine while showing signs of political flexibility. Although a permanent peace settlement with Israel was forbidden, Hamas left open the option of an agreement, provided it assumed a temporary form.
By interpreting any political agreement involving the West Bank and Gaza Strip as merely a pause on the historic road of jihad, Hamas achieved political flexibility without forsaking its ideological credibility. Having adopted the strategy of a temporary settlement, Hamas was ready to acquiesce to the 1993 Oslo process without recognising Israel; to support the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip without ending the state of war or renouncing its ultimate goals; and to consider restraint, but not to give up the armed struggle.
Political activity here and now was thus justified in terms of the hereafter. Acceptance of a political settlement in the short run was interpreted as being complementary, not contradictory, to long-term desires. In this sense Hamas’s positions demonstrated conformity with the formal Hamas doctrine while showing signs of political flexibility.
There is no better example to demonstrate Hamas’s ability to balance between its adherence to the religious dogma and the need to adjust itself to the political constraints and social predicaments, than Hamas’s 2017 issuance of its ‘Document of General Principles and Policies’. This new de facto charter depicts the movement as tracing wasatiyya, ‘the middle road’, between extremism and flexibility. In Hamas’s own words, on its official website, ‘Hamas is a national liberation movement with a balanced middle way of Islamic thinking.’
Gaza Under Hamas contributes to a deeper understanding of the Palestinian Hamas and the Palestinian politics and society. It is a book that relies immensely on direct information from within, and portraits Hamas as a dialectic movement acquainted with and adaptable to the tremendous changes in the political world and in its surrounding environment – a harsh environment of constant bargaining and power brokering, multiple identities and fluid loyalties in which victory is never complete and tension is never ending.
Foreword written by Shaul Mishal.