As we bemoan the pitfalls of the current US/Israeli efforts to bolster Fatah in its battle with hated Hamas, it might be fitting to recall Hamas and Israel’s oft-forgotten dirty little. Seen as an effective means of undermining the secular nationalist movement, ie Fatah and the PLO, Israel allowed and encouraged Hamas to blossom in its early years.
Writes Beverly Milton-Edwards in her 1996 history “Islamic Politics in Palestine”:
In 1978 Israel’s civil administration in Gaza encouraged (Hamas founder) Sheikh Yassin and his colleagues to submit an application to register the Mujama (Hamas’ precursor) as a charitable society. Permission was granted. As such official recognition was frequently denied to other Gazans during this period, the decision was viewed with suspciaion by the local political community. Although the Mujama described itself as a charity, the Israelis were well aware of its political aspirations. But as the events of the years following 1978 highlighted, they were willing to turn the proverbial blind eye if such political aspirations were at the expense of the national movement. When the Mujama started to exert its influence over already existing institutions as a means to undermine the nationalists, the Israelis stood by.
Or as University of San Francisco politics professor Stephen Zunes writes in his recent must read history of Hamas:
The hope was that if people spent more time praying in mosques, they would be less prone to enlist in left-wing nationalist movements challenging the Israeli occupation.
While supporters of the secular PLO were denied their own media or right to hold political gatherings, the Israeli occupation authorities allowed radical Islamic groups to hold rallies, publish uncensored newspapers and even have their own radio station. For example, in the occupied Palestinian city of Gaza in 1981, Israeli soldiers - who had shown no hesitation in brutally suppressing peaceful pro-PLO demonstrations - stood by when a group of Islamic extremists attacked and burned a PLO-affiliated health clinic in Gaza for offering family planning services for women.
Israel’s priorities in suppressing Palestinian dissent during this period were revealing: in 1988, Israel forcibly exiled Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad, a Christian pacifist who advocated the use of Gandhian-style resistance to the Israeli occupation and Israeli-Palestinian peace while allowing Sheik Yassin to circulate anti-Jewish hate literature and publicly call for the destruction of Israel by force of arms.
American policy was not much different: up until 1993, US officials in the consular office in Jerusalem met periodically with Hamas leaders while they were barred from meeting with anyone from the PLO. This policy continued despite the fact that the PLO had renounced terrorism and unilaterally recognized Israel as far back as 1988.
9 responses so far ↓
1 greenmamba // Jul 2, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Big deal. Western democracies generally do what makes sense at the time, hoping to maintain the best peace at the lowest cost. This action may have been bad judgement but maybe such a group was destined to spring up regardless.
2 Duncan // Jul 2, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I agree with greenmamba that these things are usually the product of poor judgement than brilliant conspiracy.
Nonetheless, I think the point is it seems a bit rich for the Israeli right to continually point to anti-Jewish hate literature as evidence of the intrinsic awfulness of Palestinians if they turned a blind eye to the groups who really got it going (although granted there was a market for it).
It should be pointed out that Mubarak Awad was a US citizen who overstayed his tourist visa rather than a Palestinian resident (at the time), so they had every right to expel him; but my God it was stupid to do so.
The Israelis were wrong to think that by removing non-violent resistance to the occupation, they were helping the occupation along; rather, “successful” settlement of the territories (without Transfer) was always going to be an impossibility. They just made the men of violence the only figures Palestinians could look up to.
3 yousef is'lame // Jul 2, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Charles, far from being a mistake of Isreali policy as you depict it or even as an accomdation as greenmamba states it, the rise of Hamas has directly led to the collapse of Fatah. Fatah you may be too young to remeber was dedicated to the destruction of Israel the same way that Hamas is today. The 2 State co-existance being a consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1988 and a PR gloss applied as product of the Oslo accords and the need to turn Arafat into an international statesman as a counter party to the Israelis in 1993. Fatah was corrupt then, as it is being shown to be corrupt now - at least by the biased Western definition of corruption. What is described as Fatah “corruption” was essentialy how Fatah did business, which is identical to how all Middle Eastern governments rule - through patronage. Hamas is no different in this respect. In time it will even prove to be far worse than Fatah, in its corruption and brutality. When the Mullahs came to power in 1979, they also prided themselves on their “clean hands” in the end they proved to be far more corrupt and brutal than the secular regieme and far more incompetent. It will take the Palestinians 20 years to understand that they are now in the process of jumping out of one despotic pan and into an even worse fire. And in these 20 years Israel will have the opportunity to grow stronger and you may well have a chance to grow up in your analysis.
4 Lewis // Jul 2, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Well, the annoying part of this entry is Charles offers no analysis.
Israel also gave aid to Iran to fight Iraq. Brilliant conspiracy, or just possibly misguided realpolitik? Or what exactly is your point?
5 Charles Levinson // Jul 2, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Fair enough all commenters — i wasn’t implying a conspiracy. Not even sure what the conspiracy would be here. And I agree with Lewis that this is simply a matter of realpolitik, and with Greenmamba that states act according to their self interests and far be it for me to get on my high horse and start preaching.
I think what I take away from this is that perhaps if Israel had come to its senses in 1980 and sat down with Fatah then rather than waiting another decade, Hamas may never have come into being.
Israel has historically made peace with, come to terms with or neutralized its enemies too late for it to count and a more virulent enemy has grown up in its place. It defeated its Arab neighbors and got the PLO. It waited nearly three decades to come to terms with the PLO and by then it had to contend with Hamas. Today, every reasonable observer knows that given Hamas’ current strong roots in Palestinian society Israel is going to have to eventually deal with the organization if it ever hopes to negotiate any sort of settlement. But it looks instead like Israel is going to continue isolating, boycotting, and blacklisting Hamas until the Army of Islam or some other far more virulent salafi type organization takes root and then it will be too late.
6 Best Friends Forever? Not Quite « The Classroom and the World // Jul 2, 2007 at 11:32 pm
[…] Friends Forever? Not Quite Jump to Comments Charles Levinson has a good short post about the original relationship between Israel and Hamas. Long before the days of Hamas as Israeli public enemy #1, Israel actually encouraged the […]
7 Will // Jul 3, 2007 at 5:34 am
Don’t you know PLO was formed in 1964 to “free” the whole of West Palestine? Don’t you know their “renouncing” terror and the whole Oslo sham was a ruse to get the gullible West all mixed up? Don’t you know that Hamas won’t even recognize Jewish presence in Israel for the last 3,000 years, let alone today? Can you talk to someone who doesn’t even recognize you exist? Can’t you comprehend that you are not the ruler of Arabs and Arabs will do what they want to do? Get over your control delusion. You have no control over the world.
And, for all of you who don’t know what they’re talking about — the “Israeli right” was never in power in Israel, not even when Likud was supposed to have ruled, not even close (and certainly not in the late 70s). Israel is controlled by left wing elites in media and judiciary, with state prosecution and the police as their lackeys. They befool the public and terrorize the rogue politicians with frivolous prosecutions. The last one who wanted to curtail their power got himself indicted and spent a good part of last year in courts accused of a kiss.
8 greenmamba // Jul 3, 2007 at 10:03 am
Fair comment Charles, but it relies on the premise that these various groups want peace and accept Israel. There is much evidence that they do not. Further, there is a history of any peace going by the wayside when it comes to supporting any a anti-Israel action by anyone else. I cite Jordan’s entry into the 6 day War as an example. There was a practical peace before that.
Egypt is a particular case in point. It froze diplomatic relations when the 2nd Intifada broke out. All the weapons that have entered Gaza since the Israeli pullout have come through Egypt. Egypt is also generally waging a diplomatic war on Israel via the U.N.
As for Hamas, I cannot understand how anyone can even think of supporting them in any way with that Jew-hating charter of theirs. Can’t we draw a line somewhere?
9 yousef is'lame // Jul 3, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Charles is doing a great job asa reporter, but falls flat when he veers off into political commentary. There is also an obvious pro-Hamas hue (lets call it a greenish tinge) to his politics. [Maybe he has to do this in order to keep reporting from Gaza. My suggestion would be to increase the factual reporting and dininish the commentary. If however you are incline to be a commentator then dont try and get at it indirectly as was teh case in teh above commentary just come out and state your opinons. That way we as readers will learn to trust your factual reporting.
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