What Will Hamas Do?

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Media outlets, intellectuals, politicians, states, and many people are asking what Hamas will do after its victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections. Seminars, intellectual gatherings, political statements, and speculation are all abuzz over Hamas’s policy on fundamental issues such as negotiations with Israel, dealing with the Western states that fund the Palestinian Authority, its position on armed resistance, etc. I have no definitive answers, but I offer the reader the following observations and speculations:

First: most of the questions directed at Hamas now have, in fact, been dictated by the West, through years of media, political, and cultural influence. Over the years, the West has planted in the minds of many media figures, thinkers, and politicians certain ideas and modes of thinking whose circulation, over time, has come to seem like truth itself. For example, a question is posed about Hamas’s relationship with “the international community,” without the questioner being able to define the international community. Are Nepal, Argentina, Chile, and Bosnia included in the international community? Usually, by “the international community” the questioner means Israel and America, and possibly Western Europe, if he wants to broaden it a bit.

Another example concerns the negotiating process and the Road Map. The questioner usually sees a catastrophe if Hamas does not accept the Road Map and refuses to recognize Israel, and believes that the international community will shun Hamas if it does not do so. These questions and others like them show that the questioner is a captive of a particular political culture that is meant to remain dominant in the Arab and Islamic region. The uncreative captive sees the absence of what he is used to as a catastrophe, as a result of his belief that the political pattern to which Palestinians have been subjected over time was an inevitable, inescapable pattern.

Second: some of those asking these questions believe that the Palestinian people will starve to death if Hamas does not adopt the negotiating track and submit to the idea of renouncing resistance and turning into a political party walking the Oslo path. This too is part of falling into voluntary captivity, which sees Western money as the only means of continuing to survive.

Third: Hamas has its charter, which sets out the broad outlines of its program in various fields. It may not have answers now to detailed, hypothetical questions, but this is the case for any government or party assuming power. Important daily issues will arise, as will regional and international ones, and Hamas will find itself obliged to provide answers or clarify positions, etc. — this is nothing miraculous. Hamas will find itself here having to strike a balance between its charter and its political tactics, tactics meant to protect the Palestinian people, or to fortify it and improve its capacity to absorb blows and respond to them.

…funds. We must first remember that dependence on Western money was a Palestinian sin, because it meant placing our own destiny in foreign hands. Dependence on the West put the Palestinian people at the mercy of others, and kept its hand in the lowest position. In any case, Hamas must manage its own affairs and turn to the Arab and Islamic states to fill the financial gap.

But it is expected that Hamas will adopt an economic program that raises the level of self-reliance. Hamas will turn toward agricultural and craft development, and toward reducing imports and consumption. This will raise the level of production and bring about a change in consumption patterns. Nor should we forget that Hamas will safeguard public funds to a high degree. The financial recklessness we have known up to now on the Palestinian scene will shrink considerably. We should also bear in mind that donor states consume about 30% of the funds they grant, on their own staff working in the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas will restructure the administrative apparatus of the Palestinian Authority. The Authority is crowded with employees who provide no service to the Palestinian people, and who are skilled at nothing but collecting a salary. Tens of thousands will be transferred

gradually toward productive work that gives a person a sense of his own worth, and lets him offer something to his homeland and his fellow citizens.

Fifth: Hamas will move to change priorities, and its focus will be first on internal conditions rather than external ones. Palestinian society suffers from fragmentation, and is negatively affected morally, and Hamas will have to adopt internal social, cultural, and security programs to restore cohesion to society. A great deal of internal work awaits Hamas, work that could well lead to confrontation with certain beneficiaries of the status quo, who will find reform harmful to their interests.

Sixth: Hamas will adopt a negotiating priority other than the Road Map and Oslo, and I believe it will make the right of return the primary issue. The right of return is a moral issue that will confront the world with a heavy human reality and a difficult moral double standard.

Seventh: Hamas will restore the Palestinian cause to its Arab and Islamic dimension, and will work to reinforce Palestinian security backing.

Eighth: Hamas will find that setting an exemplary model is what will keep the people united and undeterred by economic hardship and Israeli violence. Hamas’s leaders will not be emperors, and we will not find them lavishing money on themselves. They will remain with the people and among them, in order to earn their trust. If our people see that the new leadership shares its bread with the people, and shares their concerns and their pains, then all international pressures will end in utter failure. And here Hamas’s leaders will find that fanaticism and rigidity are two afflictions to be avoided.

Ninth: the road is not paved smooth before Hamas, and it will encounter many hardships, obstacles, and Israeli punitive measures. Israel will tighten the noose, assassinate, arrest, and intensify settlement, but Hamas looks at the conflict as a whole, not merely at its individual skirmishes.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “ماذا ستعمل حماس؟” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.