COMMENT Hamas at 25: Beyond the tired
language By Ramzy Baroud
"In a moment of high theatre he
dropped to his knees, placed his lips on the
ground and kissed the land he has commanded by
proxy".
That's how Robert Tait of
the British Telegraph worded the moment Khaled
Meshaal arrived in Gaza on December 7. Tait's
report on what many in Gaza and elsewhere consider
a watershed event in the history of the Islamic
movement, was mostly consistent with mainstream
reporting on any event concerning the impoverished
and besieged Strip: often
biased, selective, and devoid of real
understanding or empathy.
Media reporting
on Hamas is doubly provocative, controversial and
similar to political stances towards Hamas.
However, in the eyes of Israel, through the prism
of its media and among Israel's Western
supporters, Hamas is an unequaled terrorist
organization, sworn to destroy Israel and unlike
the other "moderate" Palestinians - for example,
Western-backed Palestinian Authority - it refuses
to recognize Israel's "right to exist". The latter
point was faithfully emphasized by Tait. He, like
many others, unthinkingly or deliberately fails to
question the incredulous condition placed on a
relatively small movement as it faces a powerful
and habitually brutal military.
Hamas'
supporters, on the other hand, see the 25-year-old
movement as the pinnacle of Palestinian
resistance; a iconic organization that unlike
leading secular Palestinian factions refuses to
compromise. To make the point, they cite various
battles and numerous assassinations of Hamas'
leaders, including that of quadriplegic Sheikh
Ahmad Yassin, who was pitilessly murdered by an
Israeli missile in 2004. They argue that a
movement which is willing to pay this kind of a
price - life itself - for its political and moral
stances must be above suspicion, if not criticism.
However, for many on the left that is
barely enough. The notion that the movement was an
outright creation of the Israeli internal
intelligence Shin Bet has been stable in leftist
discourse for many years. The idea is often
accepted without any serious attempts at
qualification or discussion, like many leftist
ideals on Palestine and Israel.
Each party
does its utmost to defend their anti- and pro-Hamas
arguments.
The pro-Israeli media is
anchored in the suicide bombings line of
reasoning, which, again, is selective, lacks
context and conveniently overlooks the fact that
thousands of Palestinians were killed by the
Israeli military, even years after Hamas abandoned
such tactics.
Hamas supporters reference
battles, notwithstanding the November 14,
eight-day war on Gaza, where Hamas, Islamic Jihad
and other resistance groups earned what they
perceive as an unprecedented victory against
Israel.
There are also those who, while
sympathizing with Palestinian aspirations and
resistance, have a difficult time accepting Hamas'
turnabout regarding Syria, its suspicious
closeness to Qatar, and what they see as shifty
and dubious political style.
Peculiarly,
there is a common denominator between all of these
perceptions of Hamas. They all brand the movement
using single, uniform logic, devoid of any
accommodating analysis that examines facts, overt
and subtle discourses, and places such intricate
phenomena in larger political contexts. Such a
unitary view is of course not unique to Hamas, but
it also applies to everything Palestinian.
It is a natural outcome of media
distortions and political bias. Anyone who Israel
perceives as an enemy is instantly dehumanized
and presented with crude and inane language.
Social media help correct the imbalance to a
degree, although also contributing to the
polarization: a Palestinian thus becomes either a
cold-blooded terrorist or a would-be martyr, bad
or good, pro-US or pro-Iran, and so on.
However, an unpretentious analysis
requires breaking away from all the fixed ideas
and preemptive conclusions, where Hamas is neither
a violence-driven menace nor a flawless
organization with a perfect track record; neither
a brainchild of Israeli intelligence, nor a
political conduit of Qatar.
Some of those
who reported on Meshaal's visit to Gaza,
emphasized the militant or religious symbols that
awaited him upon arrival. He was "greeted by a
throng of hundreds of chanting supporters - some
armed to the teeth with Kalishnikovs and rocket
propelled grenades," wrote Tait right in the first
paragraph. Others highlighted his "wish" to one
day die a "martyr" in Gaza (AFP). Once again, such
reporting confounds terms with deep cultural
references - as in his willingness to pay the
ultimate price for his beliefs. Interestingly,
Meshaal was in fact all but dead in an Israeli
assassination attempt at his life in Amman, Jordan
in 1997, another fact conveniently omitted from
many reports.
Since its inception, Hamas
has grown in every pertinent way. Its very first
statement was a true depiction of the inexperience
of the movement at the time and the nature of the
relationship that governed ill-fated Palestinians
and the rest of the Arab world: "It's our duty to
address the word to the Arab rulers, and
particularly to the rulers of Egypt, the Egyptian
army and the Egyptian people, as follows: What has
happened to you, O rulers of Egypt? Were you
asleep in the period of the treaty of shame and
surrender, the Camp David treaty?"
Since
then, the political landscape has been repeatedly
altered. While Hamas' own evolution had itself
impacted some of the change - for example, its
decision to participate in the legislative
elections in 2006, its conflict with Fatah, and
its handling of the situation in Gaza since then -
much of the transformation, especially in the last
two years has not been of its own making.
As violence flared in Syria, Hamas
attempted to develop a unique neutral position
which failed. The political schisms in Syria
proved impossible to navigate and the
assassination of Kamal Ghanaja, a Hamas mid-level
leader in Damascus in June was the bloody
culmination of that failure.
Fearing that
Hamas' anxiety would lead to further closeness to
Iran - especially as the political score in
tumultuous Egypt is yet to be settled - a major
campaign, led by Qatar was initiated to sway Hamas
from Iran, which was a major source of support to
Hamas and other Palestinian factions. The push to
influence Hamas was topped by a late October visit
to Gaza by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, emir
of Qatar.
It was then that Hamas Prime
Minister Ismail Haniyeh declared that the siege
was over, only to be reminded three weeks later by
a massive Israeli war that it was not. However,
deterring Hamas backfired and Israel soundly lost
that battle. In the process there were new
discoveries that the resistance in Gaza was much
more resourceful than previously thought.
Days after Gazans celebrated the defeat of
Israel's war objectives, several billboards
thanking Iran for its help of the resistance were
erected in Gaza. It was perhaps Hamas' (and the
Islamic Jihad) way of sending a clear message that
it will continue to play by its own rules, that it
is a member of no camp, that its allegiance
remains to principles and not to governments or
funds. Interestingly though, the billboards were
not signed.
Now that Meshaal has visited
Gaza and been greeted by a large number of
Palestinians, the movement seems to operate with
greater clarity and confidence than any other time
in the last two years. "Politics without
resistance has no meaning," he said soon after
arrival. The statement is rife with meanings and
suggestions.
At 25, Hamas has morphed in
its status and importance, and within that
prominence lies its strengths and weaknesses. In
order to maintain a level of power and to
safeguard its political evolution, it has no other
option but to become even more dependent on other
parties, Egypt notwithstanding, whose prospects
for stability are receding by the day.
The
Israeli prescription of understanding everything
Palestinian, including Hamas, no longer suffices.
Western journalists need to take notice of that
complex reality and quit stereotyping and
cataloging Palestinians using the same old
language. There is more to understanding such
issues than a tired division between good guys and
others "hell-bent on the destruction of Israel."
Hamas should be understood properly within its
local context, and then in relations to all of its
surroundings, including Israel.
25-years
later, Hamas is still understood within limited
confines of an ever-redundant discourse obsessed
with Israel's security, and later with an imagined
Iranian threat. A new understanding is desperately required, one that is sensible enough to take into account the uniqueness of the Palestinian narrative itself, Palestinian history, the struggle and rights involved, as opposed to Israel's security - the cornerstone of Western media reporting on Palestine and the Middle East.
Ramzy Baroud (ramzybaroud.net)
is an internationally syndicated columnist and the
editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book
is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's
Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online
(Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
