The Hamas Conundrum

In the four years since it swept Palestinian parliamentary elections, Hamas has neither moderated its policies nor adopted democratic principles. Constantly torn between its ideology as an Islamist jihadi movement and its responsibilities as a governing authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has proven unwilling to transform itself. The result has been an ongoing ideological and political crisis for Hamas and, more generally, the Palestinian Authority. Last October, Hamas was faced with the challenge of new elections mandated by Palestinian law and set for January by the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction is Hamas’ chief rival. Hamas’ reaction was to ban any voting from taking place in Gaza. Consequently, Abbas postponed the elections indefinitely, sparking heated debate with Hamas over the legitimacy of his continued tenure as president.

Soon after Hamas’ 2006 electoral victory, I identified some conditions necessary for co-opting ideologically extreme and violent political movements (“Can Hamas Be Tamed?” March/April 2006). I argued that Hamas was unlikely to become more moderate in the foreseeable future, primarily because there was neither a strong Palestinian government nor a viable political center capable of containing and co-opting the group. Unfortunately, this has proven to be true -- and it remains so today.

After winning the 2006 election, Hamas immediately began grappling with various conflicting pressures. The Israeli government, which evacuated its citizens and military from Gaza in 2005, reacted strongly -- militarily, economically, and diplomatically -- to the continued firing of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, first by factions other than Hamas and later by Hamas itself. Meanwhile, immediately after Hamas’ electoral victory, the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia) demanded that Hamas, in order to gain international legitimacy, commit to nonviolence, recognize Israel, and accept previous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. All the while, Hamas felt a domestic imperative to secure Palestinian national unity. In the face of these pressures, it consistently tried to govern without moderating its ideology. It remained dedicated to “resistance” and to Israel’s destruction -- and therefore opposed to any concept of a real peace process.

When forced to make hard choices, Hamas has been repeatedly pulled down by the weight of its dogma. In early 2007, in an attempt to halt escalating intra-Palestinian bloodshed and secure international aid, Hamas agreed to share power with Fatah in a national unity government. But Hamas adamantly refused to include in the government’s platform any acceptance of the Quartet's conditions or of the 2002 Arab peace initiative, which proposed that Arab states normalize relations with Israel following a comprehensive settlement of Arab-Israeli issues. By June 2007, the national unity government had collapsed. Under the initiative of its more radical military wing, Hamas forcibly overran Gaza and brutally established its rule, in many cases throwing Fatah members from rooftops or shooting them in the knees. Thus, despite the expectations of some who encouraged Hamas’ participation in politics, political inclusion did not contain or domesticate the group. Rather, Hamas resisted domestication until finally bursting out and forming an independent political entity.

The violent end of the unity government split the Palestinian territories into two entities -- one in the West Bank, one in the Gaza Strip -- with vastly different governments and political climates. In the West Bank, Abbas and Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, embarked on an overdue and unprecedented reform process, which included clamping down on Hamas grassroots groups through widespread arrests, the discharging of radical preachers from mosques, and the seizure of Hamas funds. The reform effort has brought improved security and impressive economic growth to the West Bank. In Gaza, by contrast, Hamas focused on being the flag-bearer for Islamists in the Middle East. This attitude led the group to cast aside practical realities in favor of pursuing ideological goals. In addition to forcing itself on local clans and usurping traditional power bases, Hamas initiated a gradual yet determined process of Islamization in all spheres of life. These included legislation and the courts; the education system; the media; and social life, as the group, in accordance with its Islamic code of conduct, demanded "modest" dress for women, banned mixed-gender social events, closed or monitored Internet cafés, and even condemned chewing gum because it “arouses the passion of the youth." Hamas’ Islamization has also meant the systematic persecution of Gaza’s Christians. As Abbas recently put it, Hamas’ policies turned Gaza into "an emirate of darkness."

Despite this record, debate still persisted among Western commentators over whether Hamas was becoming moderate. This was because Hamas performed some window dressing to maintain its domestic legitimacy and garner international approval. Over the last two years, it has been conducting intermittent national unity talks with Fatah (to no avail). It also reached out to the West, suggesting a dialogue with Western governments. And some Hamas leaders occasionally expressed willingness to accept a long-term cease-fire with Israel if a Palestinian state were established along the 1967 borders. Hamas assumed these seemingly moderate postures as a way to address political pressures without reforming its ideology: there has been no evidence that Hamas leaders are reconsidering their core beliefs -- only that they are, at most, debating which tactics best serve those beliefs.