reconciling ideology and pragmatics in ham as founding charter

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Harakat al-Muqawama al-

Islamiyya

Reconciling Ideology and Pragmatics in the

Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement

Nathaniel Whittemore

1



*Please note that, in the interest of space, in-text references refer to

informational sources by the number listed with the particular article in the

bibliography.

2



Introduction

It was a hot, listless day in 1989 in the neighborhood of Bayt Sahur,

part of the occupied Palestinian territories. Dust hung in the air as hundreds

of angry feet stamped frustration into a palpable storm on the narrow street.

From the windows above, gawky onlookers cheered and screamed as the

children, teenagers and younger, hurled stones at the small group of Israeli

soldiers caught in the melee. Some yelled for blood; some crowed for death;

all raged with the inescapability of their furious violent intoxication. Within

one shabby apartment, a middle-aged woman wrested herself away from her

Pyrrhic glee long enough to wonder aloud, “Am I losing my humanity?”1

Such were the conditions of the Palestinian territories during the first

intifada, which began in December of 1987. Life was a blur of occupation,

fear, struggle, economic hardship, God, forgotten promises, forsaken dreams,

and a constant battle to avoid succumbing to hopelessness. It was into this

world that Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Resistance

Movement, was born.

The movement began as a militant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood

and Hamas’ relationship with its parent would allow it to access an entire

network of social, organizational, and financial resources that it would

otherwise have been without. Although the Brotherhood operated on a

Palestinian and international plane, Hamas came about specifically in

response to the crisis of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hamas was a departure from other organizations in that it cultivated

the depravity of the population for political and social mobilization. It

portrayed solutions in the terms of a militant religious ideology. In this way, it

was a reaction not only to Israeli presence, but to the failure of impotent

secular Palestinian leadership.

Caught between dogmatic ideology and political reality, Hamas is a

movement fraught with paradox. How can it contend that secular nationalism

is entirely ineffectual yet at the same time insist that it is not trying to drive a

wedge in the Palestinian national leadership? How can base itself on

disparaging compromise in principle and an association of surrendering any

part of Palestine with heresy, yet at the same time, maneuver politically for

1 Finkelstein, Article 17

3



the good of the people? Most fundamentally, how is it that a movement that

views itself as violently militant and religiously fundamentalist can function

as an unflinching national and moral defender, yet at the same time react

and adapt to new social circumstances?

Within the intifada participants, there existed a multitude of mindsets

connected by a common thread of desperation and the intolerable

motionlessness that two decades of occupation had left them with. Hamas

appealed both to this frustration and moreover, to a shared Islamic heritage,

which had until then remained relatively untapped as a source of social

mobilization. In these appeals, Hamas outwardly posited itself as the

religious, unflinching, and proactive alternative to the secular, complacent,

and reactive monolith of extant leadership. On an important operational

level, however, the Movement attempted to distance itself from potential

sources of blame and to leave its rhetorical options open that it might adapt

to the changing circumstances of adherents. On some levels then, Hamas

functioned as a populist movement in the disguise of a novel religiously

militant ideology. It did indeed appeal to people’s hopeless side, but in so

doing, tied itself to the fluid emotional condition of the occupied Palestinians.

The early history of Hamas was thus a balancing act between rigid ideology

and prosaic practice that would hopefully allow it to become both a credible

alternative to secular Palestinian leadership and effective leader of

Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

Extant literary and media sources have tended to dismiss Hamas as a

hopelessly radical and interminably violent obstacle to peace. Rather than

looking at the way in which the organization has functioned, the journalistic

corpus has taken Hamas at face value, only mentioning it in the context of

yet another suicide bombing or as a diversion to be somehow handled by

whoever the new Palestinian Prime Minister may be. The American public has

been conditioned after Pavlov to associate Hamas with Islam and Islam with

extremist violence. Indeed, until a few years ago, my mind made the same

instant associations that the broad majority of news-hungry Fox viewers

experience now. Little if any consideration, however, is given to why Hamas

exists. Little if any attention is paid to the historical underpinnings of the

organization and what it is that has allowed it to remain an influential actor in

4



were interpreting Hamas as they were introduced to it, as well as to separate

the collective stereotype of the Islamic Resistence Movement from its

actually early functional organization, I tried to find sources from the late

1980s and early 1990s. A number of articles come from the Middle East

Report, and many are from the Journal of Palestine Studies. The articles

range from the strictly factual, such as the U.S. Deparment of State’s Country

Reports on Human Rights Practices 1989, to interviews with Hamas leaders

and spokespeople, to vivid personal accounts of time spent in the occupied

territories, such as Norman Finkelstein’s moving article about his stay in Bayt

Sahur. For overall guidance, I employed The Palestinian Hamas: Vision,

Violence, and Coexistence, a book published in 2000. A few other books with

topics ranging from social movement theory to the nature of Muslim

Rebellion were recruited to help augment my understanding of Hamas as a

social phenomenon. For a complete list of materials, please see the end of

this paper.

Analysis

Precursor to a Movement: The Organizational Foundation of Hamas

Even from its earliest moments, the social positioning of Hamas had

been imbued with the politics of caution. The Charter of Harakat al-

Muqawama al-Islamiyya was published in August 1988, a full eight months

after the intifada had exploded in the occupied territories. The first leaflets

released to the public under the organization’s banner had been

disseminated in January of that year, and the earliest fliers retroactively

identified with Hamas were released on December 18, 1987.2 The Muslim

Brotherhood, out of which the Islamic Resistance Movement had formed, was

cautious to test public perception of the more radical group before

acknowledging its own role in formation.

The creation of the movement was a response to the Palestinian

uprising and more specifically, the demand of younger Brotherhood members

that the organization become involved in the immediate politics of liberation.3

During the 1970s and 80s, the Brotherhood had maintained a comfortable

distance from political or physical confrontation of the Israeli occupation. Its

2 Article 23 Article 2

6



espoused ideology suggested that a re-education and re-Islamicization of

society were necessary precursors of any attempt to build a truly Islamic

state. This is not to suggest that the Brotherhood was inactive in the social

framework of occupied Palestinian society. Indeed, the charismatic new

leadership of this era centralized the religious and civic activities of the

Brotherhood and was vital in creating social bases of support and potential

sites of mobilization that would later be employed by Hamas. Interestingly, it

was the relative political laxity of the Brotherhood during the twenty-years

following the Six Days war that created both the necessity of a new

organization to serve as the MB’s radical face and the organizational

resources which would allow that organization to function within the chaotic

power dynamics of the intifada.

On December 8, 1987, one day after the start of the Uprising,

Brotherhood leaders met in Gaza to discuss possible courses of action. It was

at this meeting that Shaykh Ahmad Yassin suggested the creation of an

ostensibly distinct but affiliated organization to carry out the radical

functioning of the Brotherhood.

Yassin and his close associated had to find a way to join theintifada without compromising the future of the movement they hadbuilt up.4

The organization would have to be its own entity because on an

important directional level, it would represent a paradigm shift in the active

principles of the Brotherhood. Due to its absence from anti-occupation

activities and history of conflict with nationalist forces, Taraki suggests that

the Muslim Brotherhood had to adopt a new name upon entering the political

sphere.5 The fiery passion with which young members demanded

Brotherhood involvement in the uprising suggested that the changing

circumstances of Israeli occupation necessitated that, at least initially, action

take precedence over education and the delayed reward of a truly Islamic

society.

The Islamic Resistance Movement had its roots in the Muslim

Brotherhood formed by Hasan al-Banna in the late 1920s. During the 1930s,

Palestinian branches of the Young Muslim Men’s Association (Jam’iyyat al-

4 Ibid 5 Article 1

7



shubban al-muslimin) coalesced under the leadership of Shaykh ‘Izz al-Din al-

Qassam, a figure who would provide later revolutionary inspiration for

Hamas. In 1945, the first branch of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood was

opened in Jerusalem.6 Its functioning during the next twenty-two years was

largely calibrated to the particular attitudes of Egypt and Jordan7. As the

Egyptian government began to institute Nasserist Pan-Arab secular

nationalism, the religiously pious organization was forced underground. It

was in this climate and largely under the onus of a young Ahmad Yassin that

the institutional framework for Hamas was laid.

Under the auspices of the newly formed al-Mujamma al-Islami (Islamic

Center), the 1970s and 80s were spent cultivating the personal,

organizational, and financial resources necessary for a movement seeking to

reassert the moral framework of society. Despite this, Abu-Amr suggests that

a certain tension arose within the movement that wouldn’t be resolved on

any tangible level until the creation of Hamas. He writes:

[Following 1967]: The Brotherhood continued to concentrate mainly on… “the upbringing of an Islamic generation” …but [its] emphasis onthe Islamic restructuring of society and religious education seemed tohave little relevance for a population that was seeking liberation fromforeign occupation.”

The Islamic Center was formed as a voluntary association by Shaykh

Yassin in 1973 to coordinate the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the

Gaza Strip and Palestine at large. Yassin had learned from his experience in

Egypt that a focus on da’wa or education would ensure that ruling bodies

would give the young movement its space.8 The organization channeled the

financial resources of the Muslim Brotherhood at home and abroad towards a

number of projects including the creation of nursery schools, social and

sports clubs, libraries, and Islamic exhibitions.9 The Islamic Center was

initially made up of seven committees ranging from “preaching and

guidance” to “charity” to “health.” Perhaps most importantly, it was crucial in

directing the zakat tax to the destitute, building new mosques, and

cultivating Islamist sentiment in the universities.

6 The Palestinian Hamas, 167 The controllers of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, respectively8 The Palestinian Hamas, 199 Article 2

8



The dilapidated socio-economic and physical conditions of the

occupied territories, including Gaza Refugee Camps that had the highest

population densities on Earth, along with the latent religiosity of the

Palestinians10 created an opening for religiously oriented social activism. The

activities of the Islamic center revolved around the mosque and in so doing,

created an appealing amalgam of religion, education, civic duty, and social

relief. The ostensibly religious and social orientation of the organization also

ensured that Israeli forces would allow it to operate with at least tacit

consent.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a nascent ideological

shift beginning within the occupied populations. The failure of the secular

Palestinian leadership to salve the situation within the territories, combined

with the vital social function of the Islamic Center and the revolutionary

religious example of Iran sparked a persistent if subtle refocus on Islam as a

source of remedy. In light of this, the Mujamma increased its attempts “to

gain a foothold in voluntary and public institutions.”11 The Islamic Center was

able to gain control of a large percentage of the Strip mosques, which were

still funded from outside the organization itself. Similarly, it encouraged

supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood to join professional associations and

unions. The Islamic University had been founded in Gaza in 1978, and

although initially bankrolled by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, by

1983 Islamic movement members comprised a majority of the board of

trustees. In the same year, an “Islamic bloc” of students backed by the

Mujamma’ won 51% of the votes in student elections. By 1986 that number

had risen to 61%. It was this cultivation of resources that would be vital for

the mobility of Hamas during the course of the intifada.12

During the 1980s, the actions of the Israeli military served to the link

“religious mobilization and nationalism.”13 In the aftermath of the attack at

the al-Aqsa mosque in April 1982, the soldier’s violence against worshipers

shocked the Palestinian and foreign public and created a scenario in which

“nationalist protest merged with religious outrage.” At the same time,

10 According to Article 9, 95% of the 633,000 Gaza Refugees were practicing Muslims.11 The Palestinian Hamas, 2212 The Palestinian Hamas, 2313 Article 9

9



economic crisis such as sinking oil prices and Israeli control over the free

Palestinian markets dramatically increased the depravity both in Gaza and on

the West Bank. By 1987, the intifada seemed to be a tinderbox just waiting

for a spark. As late as December 6, Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres had

suggested leaving the Gaza Strip. The next day, all hell broke loose.

Reconciling Prose and Poetry: the Charter of Harakat al-Muqawama

al-Islamiyya

In the climate of the first nine months of uprising, the efficacy of the

ostensibly radical new organization was put to the test. In August 1988, the

group released its Charter, expounding its redefined militant ideology and

delineating its own function as well as the responsibility of all Palestinians in

“raising the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.”14 These ideas aside,

the most important function of the document was to resolve the operational

paradox between rigid Islamic principles that decried compromise and the

adaptive necessity inspired by fluid political realities. By allowing the flowing

grandeur of revolutionary religious principle to rhetorically subsume the

safety valves and apparent inconsistencies, the organization allowed itself

important functional maneuverability while preserving the consistency and

unyielding force of its message.

Cultivating Mass Appeal: Religious Co-option of Populist and

Nationalist Sentiment

It is undeniable that the 1988 charter it is, both in language and

content, religious in its appeal to action. Yet, within this religiosity, there are

a number of intricacies by which the religion of Hamas appropriates the

popular sentiments that had previously been used to galvanize the

Palestinian population. Milton-Edwards goes so far as to suggest that “the

activities remain essentially the same; [it is] the justification for the action

[that] changes.”15 In the course of its thirty-six articles, the Charter creates

individual religious duty out of common oppression and links Islam

inextricably to both means and ends of Palestinian struggle.


10



The Charter begins with three quotes that within them allude to the

multiple sentiment of the Movement. Quoting from the Quran sets the

religious tone of the document, but in the particular selection also suggests a

latent Islamic nationalism: “bismallah al-rahman al-rahim: Ye are the best

nation that hath been raised up unto mankind: ye command that which is

just, and ye forbid that which is unjust, and ye believe in Allah.” 16 The quote,

while literally referring to all Arab Muslims, takes slightly new properties in

the context of Hamas’ directed appeal to the occupied populations. Such a

powerful statement ostensibly from the mouth of God could not help but

engender a sort of national pride which would serve to bind the Palestinian

readers together in both a national and religious struggle.

Just as it binds together, however, Hamas suggests that the

responsibility of struggle falls not only on the community but upon each

individual member as well. “Indeed, the Islamic world is burning, therefore it

is obligatory on everyone to put a little of it out so he can extinguish what he

is able to do without waiting for anyone else.” So begins the theme of

necessary personal commitment that is extended later in the document. In

addition to broadening the movement to include everyone, this particular

quote speaks to the urgency of Hamas’ inception. In quoting the Shaykh

Amjad al-Zahawee, the organization suggested the immediacy, necessity,

and primacy of its own mission.

Additionally, the first page of the Charter quotes Hasan al-Banna and

suggests that the only possible solution to the establishment of Israel must

come from Islam. This is the first example of the documents attempt to frame

militant religion as the solution which national secularism has been unable to

propose. This theme is extended in Hamas’ interpretation and appropriation

of the principle of jihad. Later the Charter says: “There is no solution to the

Palestine question other than sacred struggle.” The connection to religion

placed the daily personal struggle requested of Palestinians in the context of

something already near and dear to them.

Perhaps even more importantly, the connection to religion was the

way in which Hamas presented itself as an alternative. On some levels, this

has been the main strength of the organization. The Charter suggests that

16 Article 7

11



Hamas perceived itself as new and novel: “Nothing of the sort is found in any

other system.” Indeed, from within its position of oppose it was able to avoid

primacy in action, and as such, culpability. By maintaining loyal opposition to

entrenched Palestinian leadership and outright defiance of Israeli rule, it has

served as the “other” to which disenchanted and desperate Palestinians

could turn.

In appealing to Islam, the founders of Hamas were targeting the

disparity and frustration of Palestinians. In some ways, this appeal was an

ideological gamble in which Hamas committed itself to steadfastness of

principle. If the movement sought to cultivate support among those

disenchanted with the ineffectuality of extant leadership, it had to position

itself as somehow opposite to that leadership. Thus, in presenting itself as an

alternative to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, a secular body steeped

in the political reality of compromise, Hamas needed to maintain a position of

uncompromising religiosity. Article One of the Charter thus delineated the

Islamic Resistance Movement as derivative of and committed to Islam.

Similarly, Article Two suggests that both Hamas and its parent the Muslim

Brotherhood were characterized by the understanding that Islam relates to

the totality of human life: “views and beliefs, politics and economics,

education and society, jurisdiction and law, exhortation and teaching,

communication and art, the seen and the unseen.”17 It was the active history

of the movement’s predecessors that allowed the organization to make this

claim, and the shifting attitudes of the 1970s and 1980s that made it

resonate with potential adherents.

During the pre-intifada period, the Muslim Brotherhood had capitalized

on rising Palestinian frustration to position religion as a new alternative to

secularism. It demanded a return to personal piety that would in the long run

restructure Palestine into a truly Islamic society. While it did not eclipse

extant Nationalist leadership bodies, it did have an important advantage in

spheres of mobilization. Because the Brotherhood operated as a religious

voluntary organization through the Mujamma’, Israeli gave its tacit consent to

the construction of new mosques, and in so doing, unwittingly facilitated the

17 Article 7

12



creation of new centers for organization that would later be capitalized for

radical aims.18

1979 saw the revolutionary rise of the Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran. This

proved to some Palestinians the political efficacy of religious organization.

During the 1980s, Islamists increasingly rallied support in a variety of social

venues. While not entirely successful in municipal professional association

elections, Islamist factions were often able to score a significant percentage

of votes and force opposition groups, such as the secular PLO and Communist

parties to join forces to survive. In the universities, Islamists were profoundly

successful. Throughout the 1980s there were clashes between religious and

secular nationalist factions, but by December 1987, the pro-Brotherhood bloc

at the Islamic university was able to capture fully 75% of votes towards the

women’s student council and 60% towards the men’s.

If Islam was to provide the Movement’s ideological foundation, it was

the job of the Charter’s authors to frame that religion not only as

fundamentally capable of serving the purpose of liberation, but also to

present it as something deeply embedded in the population yet at the same

time socially dormant. The trick of the Charter would be to show people that

the failure of those nationalist and populist principles to which extant

leadership appealed was not in the principles themselves. Rather, the

document suggested that the fault had come in failing to understand those

principles in the context of Islam, which was, according to Hamas, the central

indivisibility and in turn, cardinal source of strength of the occupied

population. In this way, Hamas could ensure that its interpretation of religion

would be cast in a new light and not tossed onto the increasingly large pile of

failed Palestinian ideologies.

During the 1980s, there had been a growing sense of the totality of

consequence of the occupation. Continually worsening economic conditions

and undifferentiating Israeli abuses chipped away at any sort of intra-

Palestinian class conflict and gave the struggle a nationally-based populist

tone. In 1995, spokesman Mahmud Zahhar said that “the building up of man

is the goal, because man, armed with his convictions, is the essential

18 The Palestinian Hamas suggests that in the decades prior to the 1987, the number of mosques doubled

from 77 to 150.

13



element.’ Hamas extended this populism by connecting all Palestinians under

the banner of Islam.

From its opening stanzas, the Charter makes an appeal not to any

subgroup but to all Muslims living under the yoke of Israeli oppression. Article

Four extends its invitation to participate to “all Muslims who desire…to join its

ranks…Allah will reward them.”19 It is clear that the document takes great

pains to relate the populism to religion; the totality of participation is meant

for all committed Muslims. Interestingly, it finds ways to reconcile broad

appeal with the social roles imposed by fundamentalist Islamic interpretation.

Acknowledging that women would have a key function in any popular

uprising, Hamas espoused the importance of Muslim women in the struggle,

while at the same time suggesting specific functions which maintain at least

theoretical religious consistency. In what seems outwardly like a radical

suggestion, Article 12 claims that, as confronting the enemy is an individual

obligation, “the woman is allowed to fight the enemy [even] without her

husband’s permission.” Similarly affecting is Article 17, which contends that

“the Muslim woman has a no lesser role than that of the Muslim man in the

war of Liberation.”20 The document quickly shifts on a rhetorical level,

however, and reclaims gender from Western modernity by applying a

traditionalist understanding of proper social roles in delineating the ways in

which the Muslim woman is to have this importance. She is the

“manufacturer of men” and has the incredible duty of educating the younger

generations.

Throughout the Charter, there is a sometimes explicit and often

implicit recognition that any struggle is destined to be long and not possibly

won in one generation. Consequently, the movement’s founders spend

significant time explaining the need for education of younger Muslim. The

theme of education or tarbiya21 represented the long term ambitions of

Shaykh Yassin and his Muslim Brotherhood companions who had spent the

past twenty years emphasizing the need for a re-Islamicization of society as

the precursor to a truly Islamic state. It was for this reason that they had

19 Article 720 Ibid 21 Article 3

14



devoted so many resources, financial and otherwise, to maintaining Islamic

nursery schools and kindergartens and to providing scholarship money for

future movement leaders who wished to study in foreign Arab states. Thus,

while to our sensitive eyes, relegating women to the field of child rearing and

education seems less than inspirational, it was indeed, a terrific and

important duty. Taraki suggests that this ideology, combined with its

implementation by a number of charismatic female leaders within the

organization, ensured the it was “particularly successful in bringing a

significant number of young refugee camp and urban women out of their

homes and into the mosque and other groupings.”22 Hamas thus maintained

the consistency of fundamentalist religion while framing the movement in

extended populist terms that included women.

As the founders of Hamas could have hardly failed to realize, the

populist appeal and specific nature of the 1987 intifada was the result of a

decade in which occupation had forced depravity on all classes. The uprising

was not the first instance of Palestinian rebellion, but it was different in that it

was a collective reaction comprised not simply of the destitute Gaza

Refugees or Professional Middle classes. Indeed, Hamas’ mission in its

Charter and informational dissemination was not to diminish depravity as the

spark of insurgence, but rather to encode that seemingly social issue with

poignant underlying religious significance.

The two decades of Israeli occupation following the 1967 war had, by

the late 1980s, created significant structural changes in the class

constituency of the occupied population. During the 1970s, the Palestinian

elite had lost much of its economic clout in the territories. An increasing

proportion of the population worked within Israeli proper, and additionally,

citrus output declined, diminishing an already weakened financial presence.23

Tamari writes that “Israeli subordination of the West Bank and Gazan

economies to its … needs in the last two decades undermined local elites and

brought about major dislocations in the regional distinctiveness of local

communities.” In addition, Israeli resettlement efforts of the 1970s had

blended Gaza refugees and indigenous populations in a way that had not


15



happened before, setting up a scenario in which mutual oppression could

coagulate into mutual reaction.24 Tamari contents that while this didn’t

entirely eliminate Palestinian social hierarchies25, it did have the unintended

consequence of creating a homogenized social base to which the intifada

leadership could appeal.

The years leading to the 1987 insurrection had seen various uprisings

about specific issues. In 1981, urban professionals such as doctors, lawyers,

and dentists engineered a strike to protest new taxes levied against them.26

While merchants supported them, the effort did not have the broad appeal of

tax refusals during the intifada. In the spring of 1982, Muslim students

gathered to demonstrate after a Jewish extremist attacked worshippers at the

al-Aqsa mosque. In response, the Israeli army beat and attacked protestors,

going so far as to fire into a mosque where prayer was taking place, killing

one young child and wounding many others. Discontent seethed from all

strata of Palestinian society at the abuses.27 A pattern of military response to

discontent and seemingly endless taxes finally created the inescapability of

Palestinian solidarity in common struggle.

Palestinians were deeply entangled in the tentacles of Israeli economicand personal control over their lives. Prior to the intifada, the struggleby Palestinians was not against their political leaders or against asocial caste, but against a collective subordination to Israeli rule. Israelimilitary presence and administrative dominance stimulated a collectivePalestinian response of steadfastness or sumud , the communalstruggle to stay on the land and maintain Palestinian social, economicand educational institutions. The intifada was unlike its predecessor[the uprising of 1936-1939] in that is became a participatoryundertaking for most segments of Palestinian society.28

The Charter of Hamas is rife with appeal to this collective discontent.

Article Ten commits the organization to providing “a support for the deprived

and a defense for all the oppressed.”29 In Article Twenty-One, it binds the

responsibility of Hamas to the people to the responsibility of the people to

each other. In a declaration that could have come straight from a populist

handbook, Hamas posits that “the people are part of the movement and for

24 Ibid 25 The hierarchies remained visible in the coordination and leadership of rebellion groups during theintifada.26 Article 927 Ibid 28 Article 1429 Article 7

16



the movemet; its power is [the movement member’s power; and its future is

their future.”30 Importantly, the document also links a response to poverty to

the totality of the effort; “social solidarity means giving aid to the needy, both

material or moral, and helping take certain actions.”31 Throughout the

Charter, it ties common oppression to common responsibility, arguing (as it

does in Article Twenty) that just as the offense of the enemy has targeted all

men, women, and children, so must all men, women, and children take part

in the battle for liberation.

The Charter also contains important allusions to the nationalism of the

Palestinians. Since Nasserist Egypt, there had been a large number of

adherents to secular nationalist politics which separated religion from the

functioning of the state. Indeed, this was precisely the “lack of Islamic Spirit

[that had] brought about distorted judgment and absurd comprehension”

that Hamas sought to remedy. Capitalizing on the apparent ineffectuality of

the Palestinian Leadership Organization to affect real political and social

improvement, the Charter attempted to appropriate nationalist principles

under the banner of religion.

Article Six declares in no uncertain terms that the “Islamic Resistance

Movement is a unique Palestinian movement” that “strives to raise the

banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine,” but it is Article Twelve which

most clearly appropriates the principle of nationalism for Hamas’

interpretation of Islam. The Article declares nationalism to be “part and

parcel” of Hamas’ “religious creed.” Indeed, “nothing is loftier or deeper…

than …confronting [the enemy] when he sets foot on the land of the

Muslims.”32 Moreover, the Article not only co-opts the principle, but extends it

and imbues it with a religious meaning much beyond what was being

suggested to Palestinians by the extant leadership.

Whereas other nationalisms consist of material, human or territorial

considerations, the Islamic Resistance Movement’s nationalism carriesall of that plus all the more important divine factors, providing it withspirit and life, since it is connected with the origin of the spirit and life-giver, raising in the sky of the homeland the divine banner to connectearth to heaven with a strong bond. 33

30 Ibid 31 Ibid 32 Article 733 Ibid

17



Hamas thus argued that it was not the nationalism itself which had

gone awry, but rather that in implementing it without connecting it to Allah,

the PLO had allowed it to loose “spirit and life.” It was for this reason that

nationalism had failed. As Milton-Edwards observed: “In essence, the

organization [appeared] to be striving to straddle (both intellectually and

ideologically) nationalist and Islamic approaches to the nature of the

Palestinian uprising.”34

It is important to acknowledge Hamas’ reliance on the idea of

“homeland,” in the above statement. Throughout the Charter, the Movement

ties its religious nationalism to the idea of land itself and the according

significance of monuments within the rightful Palestinian borders. Taraki

suggests that this is a fundamental difference from which flows one of the

most basic and important tenets of Hamas’ dogma. 35

Article Eleven delineates Palestine as an Islamic waqf or sacred

endowment. This means that it perceives the land to be promised to all

Muslims from the day of its conquering until the day of judgment. In this

assessment it creates an act of heresy from any compromise which would in

any way parcel that land. “It is not right to give up it or any part of it.”

Framing its argument in the language of the Quran and even alluding to the

sin of associationism, the Charter writes:

Neither a king nor a president…not any organization or all of them…have such authority, because the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [endowed] to all Muslim generations until the day of resurrection. [So]who has the legitimate right to represent all Islamic generations untilthe day of resurrection?36

This unyielding position, perhaps more than any other delineated in

the Charter, has caused controversy for opponents of the organization. How

could the organization function, they have asked, with no room for

compromise. Indeed, it is this section which has been the most troublesome

for the main Palestinian leadership bodies which have attempted to use

compromise as a negotiating tool for improvement of social conditions.

In a similar religious reassertion, the Charter reemphasizes the

significance of certain sites contained within the contested territories.

34 Article 335 Article 136 Article 7

18



Principally, it connects the struggle for liberation to the holy importance of

Jerusalem and specifically, the Haram al-Sharif from which Muhammed began

his ascention to Heaven in the Night Journey. Article 14 extends the

significance of the Palestinian conflict to all Muslims by reminding that the

mosque is the third holiest site in Islam.

Article Twelve not only reclaims nationalism in the name of Islam, it

assumes the responsibility of introducing the single most important religious

concept of the Islamic Resistance Movement, the sacred struggle of jihad .

Nothing is loftier or deeper…than waging a holy war (jihad) against theenemy. This becomes the individual responsibility of every Muslim manand woman.37

In their appeal to this principle, Hamas tied the depravity, frustration,

and borderline hopelessness of the Palestinian rebels to tangible religious

action and a new suggestion of real solution to the problem. For the

organization, it represented a paradigm shift from the tarbiya (education) and

da’wa employed by Shaykh Yassin’s Mujamma’.38It was a strategy borne of

example, and was vital in taking religion out of the realm of theory and

rhetoric and placing it squarely into the physical world. The significance of

visible participation and movement cannot be overestimated. Taraki

suggested in early 1989 that Hamas had up until that point struggled to gain

support for the simple reason that it hadn’t acted enough to build

credentials.39 Four years later, however, Abu-Amr suggested that it had been

precisely this action, more even than any purported principle, that had

facilitated Hamas’ political and social ascendancy40.

Hamas’ suggested use of violence as a political tactic had its direct

predecessor in the militant Islamic Jihad organization. Young militants such as

Imad al-Saftawi rejected not only the leadership of the PLO, but also decried

what they saw as inaction on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood. New violent

revolutionary counter-occupation tactics were to become their mantra. The

Islamic Jihad announced its arrival onto the political scene in October 1986,

when a number of paramilitary youths associated with the group threw

37 Ibid 38 Article 339 Article 140 Article 2

19



grenades into a crowd of Israeli soldiers assembled for a ceremony at the

Western Wall.41

The idea of revolutionary violence and jihad was not a new to the

1980s, however. In 1965, Brotherhood leader Sayyid Qutb published his

seminal Milestones. In the book, Qutb suggests that not only is jihad

acceptable, it is a fundamental responsibility of Muslims. He says that jahili

(ignorant) societies “seek to put obstructions in [Islam’s] path. This leaves no

option for Islam but to fight.”42 Indeed, Hamas viewed itself as the most

recent “link in the chain of Jihad in confrontation with the Zionist invasion.”43

In the view of the movement’s framers, this chain extended back much

farther than Qutb. They viewed themselves as inheritors of the heritage of

Shaykh ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam who led the Haifa branch of the Young Muslim

Men’s Association and dedicated that group to assinating Jewish and British

officials in the name of jihad .44

The success of the 1979 Iranian revolution renewed the plausibility of

violent tactics for social upheaval.45 In the early 1980s, the Muslim

Brotherhood started to shift towards more militant tactics in order to avoid

loosing youthful recruits to the more militant Islamic Jihad. 1984 saw the

arrest of Shaykh Yassin and a number of conspirators when an illegal arms

cache was uncovered.46 Israeli soon began putting restrictions on the

suddenly more questionable religious organization, but by 1987, the

philosophy of jihad was well-placed to take primacy as modus operandi for

the new Palestinian Hamas.

Article Fifteen begins “once the enemies usurp some of the Muslim

lands, Jihad becomes an individual obligation for every Muslim. In the

confrontation with the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we must raise the

banner of Jihad.” 47 The statement shows the dual conceptual nature of

Hamas’ jihad . It was a responsibility extended to all Muslims, yet somehow

distinctly Palestinian. This article (as well as the Nineteenth) extends the

41 Article 942 Milestones, 6243 Charter, Article 744 The Palestinian Hamas, 1645 The Palestinian Hamas, 3046 Article 947 Article 7

20



sphere of the concept as well, suggesting that it encompasses not only

violence, but the art, education, and ideology of all Muslim generations.

In the Charter, then, jihad functions as the glue by which Hamas bound

shared oppression to shared responsibility. For the Islamic Resistance

Movement, the Palestinians were bound inextricably together not simply by

depravity in occupation, but also by their religion and in turn, religious

responsibility. The appeal of the concept of jihad lay in that it spoke to both a

sense of collective duty and purpose of individual action. What’s more, the

concept of jihad as espoused by Hamas combined a pan-Islamic notion of

holy war as defense against heretical infringement upon the Muslim world at

large48 with the ultranationalist jihad of the Islamic Jihad, which focused

specifically on the conditions of Israeli occupation. In suggesting that each

and every individual Muslim had the duty to wage jihad , be it intellectual,

military, or ideological, Hamas created an identity with which desperate and

disaffected Palestinians could rally, and also an operation by which they

could individually struggle against the motionlessness and apparent futility of

their own personal situation.

Perhaps the most important characteristic of Hamas’ jihad was its

fluidity. In a 1992 article that appeared in the British Journal of Palestine

Studies, Milton-Edwards marveled at the prosaic way in which Hamas framed

holy war as both internationally inclusive (and thus consistent with the pan-

Islamic religious interpretation espoused by fundamentalist theorists) and at

the same time decidedly focused on the circumstances of Israeli occupation.

Applicable to more than just its notion of sacred struggle, this particular

ability to operate with both unyielding religious consistency and at the same

time tailor operations to political and social realities has, since the beginning,

been the single most important organizational strength of the Islamic

Resistance Movement.

Room to Operate: the Inscrutable Maneuverability of Hamas

While the Charter of Harakat al-Muqawam al-Islami had to frame a new

militant religious ideology in the nationalist, populist, and novel terms that

would attract Palestinians to the organization, so too did it have to install

ideological loopholes by which the movement could adapt to changing

48 Represented most notably by Shaykh ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam

21



circumstances while maintaining the image of unwavering consistency. The

credibility of the organization, and in turn, its operational success, would

depend on its ability to maneuver within the reality of fluid political scenarios

yet at the same time appear to remain rigidly committed to its principles of

immalleable militancy and non-compromise.

Extension of Culpability

One important trait of Hamas was its ability to operate outside of the

realm of disapprobation for the continued social and physical oppression of

the Palestinian people. The Movement bolstered itself with the disillusion of

citizens and disapproval of the contemporaneous PLO, yet has been able to

avoid similar criticism. In remaining in a position of organizational

subordination to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (later the Palestinian

National Council), Hamas avoided the situation whereby it would be forced to

take primary responsibility for new political initiative. While secular

leadership retains the role of bargainer with Israel and foreign countries, it

will continue to be the most visibly culpable for the continued occupation.

The Charter of Hamas aids this position by suggesting radical sustained

personal effort, rather than political bargaining, is the solution to the

Palestinian crisis.

Indeed, Hamas is not an organization that purports to be a panacea.

According to its Charter, the end of liberation will not come from the Islamic

Resistance Movement itself, but rather by the universal participation in the

religious actions (most notably jihad) the banner of which is carried by

Hamas. Thus the emphasis is, to some degree, shifted off of the organization

as such and instead extended to the responsibility of all Palestinians (and

more broadly, all Muslims) to engage in the process of liberation individually,

as well as a collective. The movement suggests that it is only as strong as the

people are united.

In Article 14, Hamas’ internationalizes the sphere of this individual

responsibility by invoking the holy significance of Jerusalem and the Haram

al-Sharif/al-Aqsa mosque. Extending the call to jihad from a national to an

international sphere provided yet another tool by which Hamas would be able

to refocus antagonism away from itself. In 1989, Taraki argued that this

strategy dispersed ideological centricity in a way that would make it hard for

22



Hamas to mobilize Palestinians. Despite this, it remained an undeniable

escape root for Hamas to circumvent criticism for failing to liberate Palestine.

Delay of Gratification

In Article Seven, Hamas introduces not only the concept of jihad , but

also attempts to explain itself in the context of history, and position itself

temporally in the context of the future. Foremost in the founder’s minds in

1987 was the way in which the credibility of the organization might be

attacked. As Taraki suggested, the Muslim Brotherhood had to create a new

group to carry out new militant participation in the intifada because the

Brotherhood itself had been notoriously absent from the physical struggle for

liberation up to that point49. It is thus that Article Seven of the Charter

suggests that “obstacles...placed by those who revolve in the orbit of

Zionism” had formerly made “impossible the pursuit of Jihad.” At the same

time, it commits the organization to that pursuit and importantly, denies any

strict timeline by which would promise to achieve results. In a line that would

be repeated both in the charter and by spokespeople for the organization,

Hamas suggested that “the road is long and the suffering is great” in the

course of jihad and the sacred struggle for Palestine. While it commits itself

to “fulfilling the promise of Allah, no matter how long that may take,” there is

an implicit acknowledgment on the part of the Movement that the problem

can not be solved within the lifetime of a single Muslim generation. By

allowing deadlines to remain nebulous or non-existent, Hamas ensures that it

cannot be blamed for lack of expediency in liberation. Indeed, turning this

potential criticism on its head, Hamas commits itself to be the organization

committed to toil no matter how long it may take, rather than the

organization that promises deliverance in any immediate fashion. Later, the

organization would enlist the religious concept of sabr (self-restraint,

patience) to “avoid confronting realities without acqueiesing to them.”50 In a

1995 interview, spokesman Mahmud Zahhar reiterated that “Hamas is not in

a hurry.”

On some levels, this emphasis on delayed gratification and the

duration of the struggle was a direct result of the Movements origins in the

49 Article 150 The Palestinian Hamas, 64

23



fundamentalism of the Muslim Brotherhood. Until the paradigm shift

necessitated by the immediacy of the intifada, the Brotherhood had

committed itself to the re-Islamicization and re-education of society that

would eventually reward them with the first truly Islamic society since the

time of Muhammed’s companions. It is not surprising then, that even though

Hamas accords immediate militancy with a new importance, it still takes time

to emphasize the necessity of education.

In Article Fifteen, the Charter synthesizes the theories of da’wa and

tarbiya manifest in the Mujamma operations with the emphasis on jihad that

appealed to the primacy of Israeli occupation. Holy war required “the

propagation of Islamic consciousness among the people.” The next article

suggested that this education must comprise all aspects of Muslim existence,

from history to religion to the tactics of the enemy. On some important level,

these two clauses imply Hamas’ acceptance of its own organizational inability

to liberate Palestine. Not only must the entire umma be involved in the

struggle, the current participants must make provisions that the younger

generations might continue the fight after their own time had passed.

Remaining ever consistent in its religious basis, the Charter contents that:

“We must instill in the minds of the generations of Muslims that the

Palestinian cause is a religious one and should be dealt with on this basis.”51

Maneuverability with Relation to other Palestinian and International

bodies

Indeed, while the consistency of religious militancy is ostensibly

preserved throughout, there is one article of the Charter that suggests that

even religiously speaking, Hamas was aware of the necessity to maintain

control over its own adaptability. In general, Islamic fundamentalist belief

involved a return to the primary sources (the Quran and the hadith) to

understand shariah law. Islamists espoused a “golden era” of Mohammed

and his companions in which society had functioned on the word of God and

sunna of the prophet. This society existed before multifarious interpretations

had led later generations astray and farther away from true Islam. It is

interesting then that Article Twenty-Three considers disagreements on

particular viewpoints with other Islamic movements to be “in the category of

51 Article 7

24



ijtihad (interpretation) as long as they have good intentions and devotion to

Allah.”

The most important of the ideological “release valves” by which

Hamas encoded its mutability were those that dealt with issues of Hamas’

relationship to other Palestinian liberation groups and foreign governments

and organizations. Even more important than the Charter’s extension of

culpability or refusal to pin the Movement into a functional timeline were

those articles and statements which preserved its right to both disagree or

cooperate with other organizations (or even participate in external peace

discussions), and at the same time maintained strict rigidity of principle.

The Charter tackles the issue of international peace conferences in

Article Thirteen. Declaring boldly and remorselessly that “giving up any part

of Palestine is tantamount to giving up part of [the] religion,”52 Hamas takes a

stance of uncompromising rigidity that, while appealing to the hopeless

desperation of some, would seem to limit its political efficacy. Despite this, a

closer reading of the Article reveals the way in which the organization allows

itself the potential for participation in just such a conference. The second

paragraph of the article caustically imagines international conferences as

bargaining tables in which participants accept or reject offers, demanding

specific conditions before making decisions with interminable consequences.

[But] the Islamic Resistance Movement – knowing the partiescomprising the conference and their past and present attitudes towardthe problems of the Muslims – does not believe that the conferencesare capable of fulfilling the demands or restoring the rights of or doing

justice to the oppressed. Those conferences are nothing but a meansof enforcing the rule of the unbelievers in the land of the Muslims.53

Thus Hamas rejects the idea of international peace bargaining not in

principle but rather in the fact of the futility of deliberating with those who

have no interest in changing the situation. In suggesting that they know the

“past and present attitudes” of participating parties, Hamas is rejecting the

ideological and political positions of peace delegations, rather than theprinciple of a peaceful solution. While “there is no solution to the Palestinian

problem except by Jihad,” this Article implicitly suggests that this has more to

52 Article 753 Ibid

25



do with conference participants that any inherent impossibility of peaceful

solution.

Interestingly, this is not the sort of meaning that Hamas would have

wanted its potential adherents to derive from the Article, and thus it is

brilliant in the way that it shields this message behind the flowing rhetoric of

ironclad commitment to non-compromise. What jumps out of the page is the

forcefulness of Hamas’ message and presentation of itself as alternative to

extant leadership, but underlying this is that attention to pragmatics which

would ensure Hamas’ political adroitness.

26



In 1993, Ziad Amu-Abr wrote in the Journal of Paelstine Studies that

It is evident that Hamas’s opposition is tempered by the realization of the hardships facing the Palestinians in the occupied territories.Despite vocal opposition, the organization does not wish to project

itself as an obstructive force when there may be a chance, howeverslim, or finding a solution. Hamas’s opposition to the talks is furthertempered by lack of available alternatives and awareness that theinternal Palestinian balance of power still favors the PLO.

Indeed, the idea of cooperation or at the very least, coexistence with

alternative Palestinian leadership is the central theme of Chapter Four of the

Charter. Article Twenty-Three delineated that “the Islamic Resistance

Movement views other Islamic movements with respect and appreciation.” It

went on to minimize differences that arise about specific issues, relegating

them to the realm of interpretation. Most importantly, the section commits

Hamas to “raising the banner of unity.” This position seems somewhat

inconsistent, especially from within the context of Hamas’ affiliation with the

Muslim Brotherhood.

During the 1980s, as violence and militancy became increasingly

acceptable as political tactics, certain elements within the Muslim

Brotherhood began a campaign of “internal jihad ” to force those elements

perceived as un-Islamic out of Palestinian society.54 Throughout the first-half

of the decade, universities were the sites of physical clashes between

Islamist and Nationalist and Leftist supporters. During this period and later,

seditious rumors held that Israeli might even been supporting Islamists in an

attempt to create discord within the Palestinian population.55 The most visible

instance of this forced implementation of Islamist influence, however, came

on January 7, 1980 when approximately 500 men marched from a mosque in

Gaza city, attacking and burning movie theaters, liquor stores, and

restaurants that served alcohol.

The remarkable shift in attitude found in Hamas’ charter, then, must

be attributed to the leader’s recognition of the distinct political space in

which the organization would be operating. While the group was framing

itself as the alternative to extant leadership, its ostensible embracing of the

others indicated recognition of its own peripheral position. In addition, the

54 The Palestinian Hamas, 2455 Article 1

27



call to unity was part of the populism which Hamas was trying to enmesh

with traditional Islam. In 1995, spokesman Mahmud Zahhar stated

unambiguously that “Civil war is a “red line” for Hamas that cannot be

crossed at any price.”56

Despite this, Hamas desired to reserve its right to disagreement. The

remainder of Chapter Four takes pains to delineate the specific ways in which

the Movement might protestor decry the action of one of its political

opponents while ostensible preserving the “banner of unity.”

Article Twenty-Four ensures that while Hamas does not allow slander

or baseless condemnation of other organizations, it while not hesitate to

“point to the mistake…warn against it…insist on spelling out the truth and

[apply] it to the given issue with impartiality.” This is a function, the

document claims, of the careful separation of a group itself and its positions

or modes of conduct. While the aim of said group may remain right and true,

disagreeable actions are to be summarily dealt with. Similar, Article Twenty-

Six suggested that Hamas would “not refrain from debating events, both local

and international, regarding the Palestinian problem” despite its favorable

view of “nationalist movements that are not loyal to the East or West.”

Indeed, this distinction among nationalist movements played an

important role in the Charter’s discussion of alternative organizations. In

Article Twelve and else where, the Movement had redefined nationalism,

giving it a religious significance that imbued it with “spirit and life.” As

elucidated in Article Twenty-Five, however, Hamas claims to respect and

support nationalist movements even when not religious “as long as they do

not give their allegiance to the Communist East or the Crusader West.”57

In making this claim, the organization gave itself an outlet by which to

attack alternative Palestinian organizations that it had conflict with with.

Similar to the argument against international peace conferences, any intra-

organizational difficulties between Hamas and nationalist movements were

derivative not of internal Palestinian weakness, but rather from some outside

infringement which had poisoned the minds of Muslims. If, however, Hamas

did choose to take issue with the policy of a rival political body, it could do so


28



under the aegis of a criticism of that organizations complicity in the face of

extra-national pressure. Thus could Hamas assure that it was “definitely and

irrevocably a source of support and assistance, both in speech and action,”

while at the same time maintain the politically expedient “alternative”

position.

Interestingly, the Charter also asserts that “anything that runs contrary

to or contradicts these orientations has been fabricated by the enemy or

those who support it, with the purpose of sowing confusion, dividing the

ranks, and entangling [us] in marginal issues.” This comment spoke directly

to the claim of some anti-Islamist detractors that Israeli had supported the

movement during the 1980s in effort to confuse coordinated Palestinian

rebellion efforts. The issue was destined to stay with the Movement. In a

1995 interview, Mahmad Zahhar called the claim “absurd.” Nevertheless,

conflict between Hamas and secular leadership has, to a large extent,

determined the political character of Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule

since the beginning of the first intifada.

The relationship of the Movement to the Palestinian Liberation

Organization has persisted as the fundamental issue within the debate of

political leadership. In the Charter, Hamas appealed to the unity of

oppression in saying that “our homeland is one…our plight is one,” but

affirmed that its own organization must maintain ideological distance from

the secular body. In attributing the PLO’s fault to the “ideological invasion

which has befallen the Arab world since the defeat of the Crusades,” the

document is able to maintain the front of companionship while being ever

critical of the extant leadership from which it hoped to wrest a modicum of

political power. At the time of its inception, Hamas’ religious alternative was

meant, on some level, to appeal to the discontented among the PLO ranks. In

embracing the organization while derogating its functional secularism, the

young movement was able to both attract adherents from the disenchanted

ranks and maintain its own political pliancy. It should be taken as a sign of

strategic success that in its self-positioning with respect to ideology and

politics, Hamas’ has ensured a perennial spot of contention when foreign

peace initiatives propose a new cease-fire to the still dominant secular

leadership.

29



Conclusion

As I conclude this paper, I can’t help but think that maybe Maslow

didn’t quite have it figured out. In his hierarchy of needs, he said that the

human instincts of survival necessarily supercede any sort of existential

yearning. Indeed, he suggested that it is not until we are safe, well-fed, and

generally content that we begin to wonder our “whys.” Situationally

speaking, this may be true, but I wonder if it doesn’t belie one of our deepest

and most inextricable characteristics.

For better or worse, evolution has given us brains capable of

comprehending our own mortality. The knowledge that one’s self is an

ultimately finite thing leads to the central paradox of humanity. How is one to

understand the value and meaning of one’s own existence while living under

the yoke of its inescapable finitude? What is worth struggling for when all

struggles eventually end in dirt? Attempts to solve this paradox have colored

social, political, and religious history; they have caused wars and revolutions.

Indeed, our attempts to transcend our mortality have, more than anything

else, determined what precisely it means to be human.

The Palestinian world is one in which survival instincts are called upon

daily. Devalued currency, increasing unemployment, and jailed wage-earners

ensure that no meal passes without wondering worriedly about the next.

Extended curfews, legalized sieges, and unannounced home invasions mean

that eyes do not close without fearing the circumstances of their next

opening. The reality of occupation ensures the possibility that what little is

left could at any time be wrenched away.

Why is it then, if those fundamental needs of satiation and security

remain unsure, that Palestinians have found their way back to religion?

Specifically, why has Islamic fundamentalism taken hold in certain segments

of society? I believe that, along with food and safety, people have a deeply

embedded and inherent need to understand themselves in a context beyond

their day-to-day existence. While Maslow might have suggested that the

more peoples’ immediate physiological needs go unmet, the less likely they

are to think about greater meaning, I believe that, in many ways, it is

precisely the opposite.

30



Since 1988, Hamas has been a permanent fixture of Middle Eastern

politics. This is amazing, especially considering that it paints itself in a

decidedly a-, if not anti-, political light. Indeed, the organization has operated

and gained strength by appealing to that desperate part of people’s nature

that struggles against hopelessness while rejecting the oft-repeated and as-

yet unfilled promise of political solution. In so doing, it has maintained an

amazingly strategic combination of religion, militancy, violence, and

pragmatic consideration for fluid social dynamics that has allowed it to

continue to cultivate adherents. The Charter of the organization was simply

its earliest delineation of this principle of conservative extremism. Within it

were sewn the seeds for a Movement that appeals both to the most

dangerous potential of an oppressed population’s desperation and the most

pragmatic resource of a politician’s tool belt. It is this aggregate, more than

any either/or, that causes shudders from those who yearn for legal

negotiation and cheers from those who had once felt themselves to be little

more than bargaining tools in a conflict over which they had never had

control.

By no means has Hamas’ cultivated support from all or even a majority

of Palestinians, but in its careful consideration of both pragmatics and

religious militancy, it has ensured a position of influence in current and future

deliberation about the centrally-defining international conflict of our political

era.

31



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