Hamas in the Regional Equation

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Most of the world stood against Hamas in the 2006 elections, yet it won a majority, and could have formed a Palestinian government entirely on its own, without allying with anyone. The world perhaps imagined that Hamas was merely a group of bearded men swaying ordinary people with an emotional, agitational religious discourse extolling the pleasures of paradise and the terrors of hellfire, but it found instead that the proportion of educated people who voted for Hamas was higher than the proportion of educated people who voted for Fatah. Israel found itself facing a new Palestinian reality, and the United States began thinking about how to extricate itself from the predicament that democracy had caused it, inflicting great damage on its Palestinian project, a project premised on turning the Palestinian people into mere individuals in search of their own private interests, stripped of the national rights of a whole people. Efforts have continued unabated to bring down Hamas in Gaza and to turn the movement into a mere party preoccupied with fine, hollow speeches.

Rising to the Level of the Challenge

Hamas began its activity following the patterns of the traditional Palestinian factions, and learned from these factions many of their methods and techniques, such as holding festivals, raising resounding slogans, engaging in open activism, and staging displays. These patterns did not provoke the occupation to the point that it initially turned a blind eye to many Hamas members, hoping to engineer a balance among the Palestinian factions that might lead to internal conflicts. The occupation did not see anything troubling in Hamas’s early activities, and thought that the internal conflicts it might feed would distract Palestinians, who would then turn away from the intifada. People did turn away from the intifada, but because of what the Palestinian leaderships corrupted, not because of Hamas’s emergence.

Hamas did not stop at the traditional trappings of factional work, and began to develop its resistance operations, which came to include manufacturing explosives and abducting soldiers. Hamas’s actions shook the Israeli leadership, which began to sense the danger Hamas posed, and its policies culminated in deporting some 400 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members to southern Lebanon. What is notable, though, is that Hamas’s development continued to intensify as Israel’s pursuit of its leaders and members intensified. This is where Hamas began to diverge from the other Palestinian factions, because its development came to encompass educational, moral, organizational, military, disciplinary, and security-hardening dimensions. Such development inevitably took time, and more time is still needed before it is complete. Hamas made numerous, repeated mistakes, but it was determined to learn from those mistakes, draw lessons, and correct course. It is now clear that the level of discipline, moral standards, and security hardening continues to rise. This is precisely what worries the enemies, who have realized that an abundance of weapons does not mean strength unless the ethics of the one bearing the weapon match the weapon itself.

Someone said to me, watching Hamas’s crowds in Rafah and the Authority’s crowds in Ramallah on the night the second batch of freed Palestinian prisoners was released, on 19 December 2011, that the gap in discipline between the two crowds was as vast as the gap between one who is about to achieve victory and one who sings the praises of a victory never achieved.

Tightening the Pursuit of Hamas

Israel, America, and their Palestinian and Arab allies have not been remiss in tightening their pursuit of Hamas, especially after the martyrdom operations began to forge a new strategic reality in the region. Arrests of Hamas members intensified, carried out by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and Arab regimes, along with every element of the global financial system, began tightening controls on money entering the territory occupied in ‘67, with the aim of drying up the movement’s sources of funding. This tightening reached its peak after the movement’s electoral victory: funds to the Palestinian people were cut off, and the movement’s elected leaders were subjected to the ugliest measures. Even the Western states failed to honor the democratic values they have so long preached to us, casting them aside for Israel’s sake.

The intensity of pursuit is usually proportional to the degree of challenge, and had Israel and the West at large not felt the challenge Hamas poses, measures against it would not have been escalated, nor would Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular, have been mobilized to confront it. The result is that this thing that calls itself the “international community” lost Gaza, and its own Palestinian project was dealt a harsh blow that threw it off balance and reduced some of its measures and policies to rubble. It had hoped to push through a project that would rid it of the burdens of the Palestinian cause, but the darkness never quite matched the hand of the thieves.

All its measures have ended in failure, and now all that is left to it is to go on threatening to wage a war on Gaza and to wipe out the whole of the Palestinian resistance.

Hamas Asserts Its Regional Presence

Before it was even launched, Hamas enjoyed a broad popular base drawn from the religious current that was then surging in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — a base built on clear educational and organizational foundations, and loyal to the Islamic movement that was an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is why Hamas appeared strong from the very outset, resting as it did on an organized group whose preparation for jihad against the occupation required nothing more than procedural and organizational matters. Hamas also drew strong backing and support from the Muslim Brotherhood spread across the entire world — bearing in mind that the Muslim Brotherhood is the broadest organization in the world, and the most widespread and committed of organizations and parties, one able to mobilize financial, media, and logistical support with great efficiency.

Hamas also drew support from Arab and Islamic parties standing outside the international order controlled by America and Israel — specifically from Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah. These parties opened their territories and camps, and perhaps some of their treasuries, to Hamas so that it could train and gain the security and military expertise necessary to confront the occupation. My own assessment is that these parties did not wait for Hamas to come to them; rather, in one way or another, they came to Hamas, and deployed much of their capabilities and effort to arm and finance it. Beyond this, the masses of the [Islamic] nation who refuse to recognize Israel — leftists, liberals, and nationalists alike — stood with Hamas and defended it in public squares, in the streets, and in the media. Hamas did not stand alone defending its positions and policies; thousands of Arab and Islamic pens and minds rose up to support and strengthen it, and to attack anyone who attacked it or tried to destroy it. It is enough to recall what these pens did to Hosni Mubarak, in the way of criticism, censure, and more.

No one enters the regional or international club except the strong, those who establish their presence on the ground. And so it has been for the Hamas movement. There are now those who refuse to speak with Hamas, and refuse to receive it, but they know that the wheel of the Palestinian cause does not turn without Hamas. This is what explains the paralysis of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, because Israel, together with America and Arab regimes, sees no benefit in negotiations whose results Gaza could turn completely upside down.

The Palestinian Bridgehead and the Regional Alliance

Hamas brought about a historic transformation through its steadfastness in the face of the Israeli army in the Cast Lead war of 2008/2009, in that it secured the Palestinian bridgehead established in Gaza. Israel has fought the Arabs and Palestinians in comprehensive wars outside the borders of Mandatory Palestine, but in Cast Lead it waged a comprehensive war on the soil of Palestine itself, and this constitutes a great Palestinian achievement, in that the war came to be fought on Palestinian soil. Through this steadfastness, the free Palestinian will to make and carry out decisions was strengthened, and the conviction was reinforced that expanding this bridgehead is possible and may be realized in the future. For whoever stands firm against Israel militarily can, in the future, defeat it. What matters is that there now exists an independent Palestinian decision on Palestinian soil, despite the siege.

Hamas is now party to an undeclared regional alliance that includes Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah — a powerful alliance possessing advanced weaponry and high technical capabilities, whose competence has been proven in battle. Hezbollah thwarted Israel in the July 2006 war, and Iran has continued raising the level of its military and nuclear capabilities to the point that the West still stands paralyzed before Iran’s insistence on continuing its military and nuclear development. This undeclared alliance stands opposite another undeclared alliance made up of Israel, [collaborating] Palestinians, and Arab regimes.

Hamas’s regional standing is expected to strengthen with the Arab revolutions, as Arab peoples display their rejection of Israel and clearly side with the resistance. This holds true for Tunisia and Egypt, and is partly true for Libya. Arab peoples stand with Arab rights, and it is expected that revolting peoples who have not yet succeeded in toppling their regimes will side with the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian resistance movement. It is also certain that the parties currently winning elections will not diverge from the Muslim Brotherhood’s line in regarding Hamas as an inseparable part of the movement’s worldwide extension.

That is to say, Hamas’s regional standing is now pushing it to the forefront of decision-making and events in the region. It is true that its weight is not yet strategic, but it is on its way to becoming so, especially within its regional alliances. It is now in a better strategic position, in that those who waged the war on Gaza are no longer certain of victory in any coming war, nor certain that other parties will not enter the war in support of Hamas.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “حماس في المعادلة الإقليمية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.