Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (22 page)

territories by bringing guidance, instruction, and support from the society and its leadership based in Jordan.

The Muslim Brotherhood spread its ideas and rallied support for the Islamic movement in several different ways. It established libraries, sports and social clubs; it also used zakat (the obligatory annual contribution by Muslims of 2.5 percent of all of their wealth) to help thousands of needy families. The Brotherhood founded and administered nursery schools, kindergartens, and primary and secondary schools, while extending loans to students in Palestinian and Arab universities.99

Mosques in the West Bank and Gaza were one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most effective tools in spreading its influence, particularly in the period following the Israeli occupation. Hence, in the time between 1967 and 1987, the number of mosques in the West Bank rose from 400 to 750 and in the Gaza Strip from 200 to 600. After daily afternoon prayers and sunset prayers, the Muslim Brotherhood was able to use mosques – as areas that were usually not subject to interference from the Israeli government or military – for religious and political work and for recruiting members.100 However, despite the Brotherhood’s growth and effectiveness in gathering support through its social services and activities, a certain amount of dissatisfaction toward the organization grew among the Palestinians because of the Brotherhood’s hesitance in directly resisting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.101

On December 9, 1987, the day after the four Palestinians had been killed in Gaza and seven others injured, leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza met to discuss ways of utilizing the event to arouse Islamic and Palestinian nationalist sentiments and assure the spread of wide public demonstrations against the occupation.102 The first meeting of Hamas was held at the house of Ahmad Yasin, the founder of the Islamic Center, and was attended by other prominent leaders of the Center: Dr (Abd al-(Aziz al-Rantisi (a physician); Dr Ibrahim al-Yazuri (a pharmacist); Sheikh Salih Shihada (an instructor at the Islamic University); (Issa al-Nashshar (an engi- neer); Muhammad Sham(a (a teacher); and (Abd al-Fattah Dukhan (a school principal).103

The first leaflet that Hamas distributed, which was on December 14, 1987, was also the first to apply the term intifada to the revolt that was taking place.104 Hamas’s handbills had a predominantly Islamic content, including the depiction of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a religious struggle between Islam and Judaism.105 According to Hamas, Palestine is only one area of conflict with the Jews but an arena of utmost importance which necessitated a physical jihad against the Israelis. Yasin stated that Palestine, in which the Jews and their allies stole lands that were eternally consecrated for the Muslims, is a holy land because it was site of the night journey of the Prophet Muhammad to heaven and of the Dome of the Rock Mosque,

the third holiest place in Islam. Moreover, Hamas states that the Jews have acted in highly questionable ways against Muslims and constitute a danger to the entire world. The Israelis treat the inhabitants of the occupied territories in a brutal manner, and during the seventh century Jews were the enemies of the Prophet Muhammad. The battles against Israel are, therefore, sacred battles and because of the sacredness of Jerusalem and Palestine to the Palestinians there is no room for compromise.106 Hence, from the outset, as enunciated in its charter which was released in August 1988, Hamas defined itself and the struggle in which it was engaged against the Israelis in specifically Islamic terms.107

Indeed, Hamas emerged in a context where many Palestinians were disillusioned with the secular Palestinian movements such as the PLO and with their failed efforts to liberate Palestinians from Israeli occupation. In addition, the Palestinians’ support of Hamas was motivated by the search for psychological comfort, strength, and endurance which a religious ideology and movement can sometimes provide.108 (At the same time, with the decline of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, Hamas was gaining strength around the same period that several other Islamist organizations in various parts of the world, such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, were becoming stronger.)

Yasin and Hamas offered the population a more appealing combination than that of the PLO and other secular groups. Islamist groups such as Hamas offer a special kind of activism that combines nationalism with calls to morality and social action. All of this is bound with the promise of divine grace. Sheikh Yasin offered the young Palestinians ideals and hopes that were far beyond the secularists’ aspirations. In addition to the liberation of Palestine, Yasin and people like him reminded Palestinian Muslims of the heavenly rewards that awaited them if they had faith in God and lived their lives in accordance with the Sharia. Yasin also told Palestinians that Palestine belonged to the Palestinians and God would bless them in their struggles against the Israelis.109 In line with this, there are members of Hamas who hope that the defeat of the Israelis at the hands of Muslims will be one important step toward the creation of a global Islamic state.110

Lilly Weissbrod describes the primary religious nature of Hamas and its objectives by maintaining that unlike the largely secular terminology of self- determination used by the PLO to justify its assertion for a Palestinian state, Hamas emphasizes religious Muslim rights to this land which was conquered in the era of the Rightly Guided Sunni Caliphs (with a special emphasis on the Caliph Umar who conquered Jerusalem in the seventh century), and which is therefore holy Muslim land and may not be held by non-Muslims.111 According to Hamas’s ideology, once Palestine is recovered, it is to be an Islamic state governed by Sharia. In line with this thinking, when Palestine (that is, the entire land between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River) is liberated from the Israelis, it will not just be part of the Islamic community,

but a distinctly Palestinian Islamic state. The Hamas Charter and the leaflets that the organization distributed during the intifada enunciate these principles.112 For Hamas, the appeal to join the struggle over Palestine is made to Palestinian Muslims for this is their own struggle for their and all Muslims’ holy land. The land is owned by the entire Islamic community, but the original inhabitants – the Palestinians – have the right to retain its use, and as Muslims it is their obligation to do so.113 Thus, Hamas’s worldview is similar to that of some other Islamist organizations in that Hamas views people and organizations who do not subscribe to its form of Islam as jahil or ignorant and potentially legitimate targets for its attacks. In sum, from Hamas’s viewpoint, its ideas provide better justification for a struggle against the Israeli occupation than those of the PLO, for example, because its Islamic ideas appeal to core Islamic values rather than to alien Western and/or secular ones, such as self-determination.114

Hamas’s Islamic ideology was translated into action in daily life during the intifada. Beginning around May 1989 Hamas drafted a precise mobilization calendar, which included the organization of general strikes, fasting, and specific days of confrontation against the Israelis.115 Hamas also gave instructions for the organization of the uprising in all aspects of daily life. For example, Hamas issued appeals to merchants and landlords not to raise their prices so that Palestinians could afford their goods and services, and exhortations to Palestinians who did collaborate or were considering collaborating with the Israelis to repent. Hamas also gave instructions to Palestinians to defend themselves against Israeli settlers and it gave Palestinians advice on security measures.116 Mosques in the West Bank and Gaza were natural places for Hamas’s social structuring of the intifada. For example, during the intifada, Hamas instructed mosque committees to organize popular teaching sessions in order to compensate for the closure of schools and universities.117 By the end of the intifada, approximately 1,793 Palestinians had been killed, while approximately 189 Israelis were killed.118 While the intifada did not end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, it may have created the environment for the establishment of the Oslo Accords.

The Oslo Peace Accords

The first intifada ended more or less in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords (which were partly founded on the momentum created by the Madrid Conference in 1991). The first set of Oslo Accords, which is often called Oslo I, to which Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin agreed, outlined a five-year plan for interim Palestinian autonomy which was divided into several phases, each of which granted the Palestinians increasing levels of administrative responsibility within the

majority-Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza, as Israeli soldiers engaged in gradual withdrawals from those areas. Oslo I (1993) was not a peace treaty between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Rather, it was an interim peace agreement that some people hoped would eventually lead to a final peace settlement. The PLO accepted this interim agreement without any agreement in advance regarding the content of a final peace settlement. The Oslo I and later Oslo II (1995) agreements never made explicit mention of a Palestinian state.119 While the Palestinians had recognized Israel’s right to exist, Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinians and agreed to negotiate with it.120 (During this period, Arafat used the treaty of Hudaybia, to which the Prophet Muhammad and his Meccan enemies agreed in 628 CE, as a precedent for negotiating with the Israelis.)121

According to the rules set forth in the Oslo Peace process, the interim negotiations between Israel and the PLO would conclude in 1998 with a permanent agreement based on United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.122 The Oslo I declaration delayed until a later date decisions regarding such important issues as the future status of largely-Arab East Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, the status of Palestinian refugees and other Palestinians who lived outside of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, as well as circumstances related to Palestinian sovereignty.123 Agreement on the Oslo I Accords led to the historic meeting and public handshake between Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993. The much more detailed Oslo II Accords (which were more than 350 pages long) set forth with much greater specificity than Oslo I the stages of Israel’s military redeployment in the West Bank and the procedures by which power would be transferred to what became the Palestinian National Authority (the self-governing body of the Palestinians), together with several other issues.124 Two of the most significant results of the Oslo Peace process were the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, which the Israeli government stated it viewed as a legitimate partner in negotiations, and the creation of a set of mechanisms for regular elections among the Palestinians.125

Over time, numerous problems led to the unsuccessful implementation of many aspects of the Oslo Accords. First, there was dissatisfaction among many Palestinians who were living in the West Bank and Gaza about the return of former PLO exiles who had been away for many years. Many Palestinians who had remained in the West Bank and Gaza resented the fact that these PLO exiles (who had not suffered under Israeli oppression for many years and were not in the majority-Palestinian territories during the intifada) had returned to govern a people and an area with which these exiles had become unfamiliar. Second, some of the Palestinians who had lived in the West Bank and Gaza believed that Yasir Arafat’s PLO was very

corrupt and only concerned about its own interests. Third, after the Oslo Accords were signed, economic impoverishment in the West Bank and Gaza became much more severe. This impoverishment was caused in part by the Israelis sealing many Palestinian cities and towns (because of the Israelis’ fear of militant Palestinian attacks), which led to many Palestinians being unable to reach their jobs in Israel proper or within the West Bank and Gaza. Fourth, after the Oslo Accords a large number of Palestinians were frustrated that:

In the midst of these hardships, on February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli settler and major in the Israeli army, went on a killing spree in the West Bank town of Hebron’s al-Ibrahimi Mosque killing 29 Palestinians who were at prayer.127 Soon after that event, Hamas began, for the first time in its history, the practice of what it and other Islamists call martyrdom operations (which are also known as suicide attacks) for the purpose of resisting the Israeli occupation with the hope of eventually creating a Palestinian state.128

There were also Israelis who felt deep dissatisfaction about the results of the Oslo Accords. While not all Israelis opposed the Accords, those who did frequently based their opposition to them on their interpretations of Judaism. Much like members of Hamas viewed their struggle in terms of certain aspects of Islam, some Jews viewed their struggle in terms of certain aspects of Judaism. For example, some Jewish leaders referred to all of Israel from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River as sacred land for the Jews and these assertions were based in part on their understanding that, according to the Hebrew Bible, God had promised that land to all their ancestors including such figures as Abraham, Moses, and David, among many others. Israelis, Jews, and Christians, who agreed with this line of thinking, believed that the potential surrender of all or part of the West Bank (which these individuals call “Judea and Samaria”) and Gaza to the