OF WHAT USE IS A PIECE OF PAPER?:

Compromising ideologies: Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of Militants, Martyrs and Spies by Zaki Chehab (Simon Martelli, 4/27.07, Asia Times)

Time will tell whether Hamas can maintain its support at the level of mainstream politics and continue on its path of defiance. Zaki Chehab has no crystal ball. But with his book Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of Militants, Martyrs and Spies, the London-based Arab journalist has given us a colorful first-hand account of a movement, both despised and revered, that must yet play a central role in any resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. As Gaza sinks further into a state of anarchy, this is a well-informed contribution to a highly emotive and pressingly topical issue.

Despite its violent history, only a small fraction of the Hamas budget has gone toward its military operations, with the lion's share being allocated to its social and welfare programs. These programs, along with Hamas' clean-handed administration and moral discipline, were inspired by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and have characterized the political activities of its Palestinian offshoot. At the parliamentary elections in 2006, Hamas' clean image contrasted sharply with the rival secular party Fatah's history of bad governance, corruption and failed negotiations with Israel. Fatah was left completely shattered after 40 years in power.

After the movement's inception, which coincided with the first Intifada and was loosely tolerated, as the author points out, by the Israelis then looking for a way to undermine the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas developed its military wing, the Izzedin Al Qassam brigades, "initially armed with nothing more dangerous than plastic guns and knives". Chehab charts the painful and violent years of the 1990s, after the Oslo Accords, when many disillusioned Palestinians volunteered themselves for suicide missions, and touches on the important role Iran and Syria played in supporting and sheltering the movement. [...]

[Y]assin and his successors' strategic decisions were only ever temporary measures, since their long-term goal has never changed: to reclaim the whole of Palestine as it had been before 1948, with Jerusalem as its capital. In the words of one senior Hamas official, speaking after the election, "You will never find anyone in Hamas who will recognize Israel's right to exist. If you do, he is a liar."

In itself, however, and as some observers have pointed out, this does not entirely preclude the possibility of an agreement with Israel now that Hamas is in power. After all, the hardline Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein signed up to a peace agreement with the British and Irish governments in 1998 that eventually paved the way for a power-sharing assembly, despite decades of violent opposition to British rule.

Contrary to the claims of those who saw the Hamas election victory as dashing any hope of peace, new opportunities for a long-term interim agreement could yet emerge, say the optimists, with the moribund peace initiatives of the past being replaced by bolder and fairer solutions for the Palestinians. The prospects are hardly encouraging. [...]

Hamas is not a hostage to its ideology. But in the absence of any significant concessions from Israel, the movement will never discard its core ideological position and make the transition to parliamentary politics. It will not just be the Palestinians who pay the price for Hamas' failure to do so.

Unfortunately, the medical problems of Ariel Sharon brough back the Israeli agreement fetish.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 27, 2007 6:33 AM