We must adjust our distorted image
of Hamas
20/01/2009
Gaza is a secular
society where people listen to pop music, watch TV and
many women walk the streets unveiled
William Sieghart
Last week I was in Gaza.
While I was there I met a group of 20 or so police
officers who were undergoing a course in conflict
management. They were eager to know whether foreigners
felt safer since Hamas had taken over the Government?
Indeed we did, we told them. Without doubt the past 18
months had seen a comparative calm on the streets of
Gaza; no gunmen on the streets, no more kidnappings.
They smiled with great pride and waved us goodbye.
Less than a week later all of these men were dead,
killed by an Israeli rocket at a graduation ceremony.
Were they “dangerous Hamas militant gunmen”? No, they
were unarmed police officers, public servants killed not
in a “militant training camp” but in the same police
station in the middle of Gaza City that had been used by
the British, the Israelis and Fatah during their periods
of rule there.
This distinction is crucial because while the horrific
scenes in Gaza and Israel play themselves out on our
television screens, a war of words is being fought that
is clouding our understanding of the realities on the
ground.
Who or what is Hamas, the movement that Ehud Barak, the
Israeli Defence Minister, would like to wipe out as
though it were a virus? Why did it win the Palestinian
elections and why does it allow rockets to be fired into
Israel? The story of Hamas over the past three years
reveals how the Israeli, US and UK governments'
misunderstanding of this Islamist movement has led us to
the brutal and desperate situation that we are in now.
The story begins nearly three years ago when Change and
Reform - Hamas's political party - unexpectedly won the
first free and fair elections in the Arab world, on a
platform of ending endemic corruption and improving the
almost non-existent public services in Gaza and the West
Bank. Against a divided opposition this ostensibly
religious party impressed the predominantly secular
community to win with 42 per cent of the vote.
Palestinians did not vote for Hamas because it was
dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel or
because it had been responsible for waves of suicide
bombings that had killed Israeli citizens. They voted
for Hamas because they thought that Fatah, the party of
the rejected Government, had failed them. Despite
renouncing violence and recognising the state of Israel
Fatah had not achieved a Palestinian state. It is
crucial to know this to understand the supposed
rejectionist position of Hamas. It won't recognise
Israel or renounce the right to resist until it is sure
of the world's commitment to a just solution to the
Palestinian issue.
In the five years that I have been visiting Gaza and the
West Bank, I have met hundreds of Hamas politicians and
supporters. None of them has professed the goal of
Islamising Palestinian society, Taleban-style. Hamas
relies on secular voters too much to do that. People
still listen to pop music, watch television and women
still choose whether to wear the veil or not.
The political leadership of Hamas is probably the most
highly qualified in the world. Boasting more than 500
PhDs in its ranks, the majority are middle-class
professionals - doctors, dentists, scientists and
engineers. Most of its leadership have been educated in
our universities and harbour no ideological hatred
towards the West. It is a grievance-based movement,
dedicated to addressing the injustice done to its
people. It has consistently offered a ten-year ceasefire
to give breathing space to resolve a conflict that has
continued for more than 60 years.
The Bush-Blair response to the Hamas victory in 2006 is
the key to today's horror. Instead of accepting the
democratically elected Government, they funded an
attempt to remove it by force; training and arming
groups of Fatah fighters to unseat Hamas militarily and
impose a new, unelected government on the Palestinians.
Further, 45 Hamas MPs are still being held in Israeli
jails.
Six months ago the Israeli Government agreed to an
Egyptian- brokered ceasefire with Hamas. In return for a
ceasefire, Israel agreed to open the crossing points and
allow a free flow of essential supplies in and out of
Gaza. The rocket barrages ended but the crossings never
fully opened, and the people of Gaza began to starve.
This crippling embargo was no reward for peace.
When Westerners ask what is in the mind of Hamas leaders
when they order or allow rockets to be fired at Israel
they fail to understand the Palestinian position. Two
months ago the Israeli Defence Forces broke the
ceasefire by entering Gaza and beginning the cycle of
killing again. In the Palestinian narrative each round
of rocket attacks is a response to Israeli attacks. In
the Israeli narrative it is the other way round.
But what does it mean when Mr Barak talks of destroying
Hamas? Does it mean killing the 42 per cent of
Palestinians who voted for it? Does it mean reoccupying
the Gaza strip that Israel withdrew from so painfully
three years ago? Or does it mean permanently separating
the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, politically
and geographically? And for those whose mantra is
Israeli security, what sort of threat do the three
quarters of a million young people growing up in Gaza
with an implacable hatred of those who starve and bomb
them pose?
It is said that this conflict is impossible to solve. In
fact, it is very simple. The top 1,000 people who run
Israel - the politicians, generals and security staff -
and the top Palestinian Islamists have never met.
Genuine peace will require that these two groups sit
down together without preconditions. But the events of
the past few days seem to have made this more unlikely
than ever. That is the challenge for the new
administration in Washington and for its European
allies.
William Sieghart is chairman of Forward Thinking, an
independent conflict resolution agency
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5420584.ece
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