The Electronic Intifada
What’s behind Hamas’ new charter?
Ali Abunimah Power Suits 2 May 2017
Members of Hamas in Gaza watch a televised press conference by the movement’s
leader Khaled Meshaal, who is in Doha, Qatar, outlining a new political
document, 1 May.
(Mohammed Asad / APA images)
Leaders of Hamas released a document outlining their guiding principles at a
press conference in the Qatari capital Doha on Monday.
Much coverage focused on the document’s acceptance of the 1967 boundary as the
basis for establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The document also
includes pronouncements on how Hamas views the roots of the conflict, the role
of resistance and its position towards Jews.
It aims to reposition Hamas as part of a Palestinian national consensus and as
an interlocutor which can eventually be part of an internationally brokered
political resolution.
The document attempts to do this while not compromising basic principles, an
exercise that leads to some apparent contradictions.
Hamas also aims to assert its independence from the Muslim Brotherhood, the
Islamist movement founded almost a century ago in Egypt and which is viewed as
an enemy by several regional regimes.
With an eye to international opinion, Hamas released its “Document of General
Principles and Policies” in official Arabic and English versions.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said the new document had been two years in the
making, but it is really the culmination of internal debates that go back more
than a decade.
Jews are not the enemy
Hamas leaders have long recognized that the group’s founding charter, written
by one man in 1988, served as an impediment to political outreach within and
beyond Palestine.
Few would dispute that the worst aspect of the original charter was its
unabashedly anti-Jewish language. Borrowing from classic European
anti-Semitism, it even cites as a reference the Tsarist anti-Semitic hoax The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Even if this long ago ceased to reflect Hamas leaders’ thinking, these odious
statements served as reliable weapons in Israel’s anti-Palestinian propaganda
arsenal.
By contrast, the new document states: “Hamas affirms that its conflict is with
the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not
wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle
against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who
constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and
illegal entity.”
This brings Hamas into line with the historic position of the Palestinian
national movement. As Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat
stated in his 1974 speech to the United Nations, “We do distinguish between
Judaism and Zionism. While we maintain our opposition to the colonialist
Zionist movement, we respect the Jewish faith.”
Meshaal had already made a similar statement during his 2012 visit to the Gaza
Strip. “We do not fight the Jews because they are Jews,” he said. “We fight the
Zionist occupiers and aggressors. And we will fight anyone who tries to occupy
our lands or attacks us.”
Anti-colonial struggle
The original charter characterizes the problem in Palestine as rooted in
Muslim-Jewish religious strife and describes the land of Palestine as an
Islamic waqf, or endowment.
But in his 2007 book Hamas: A History from Within, scholar Azzam Tamimi writes
that Hamas leaders already felt that they needed to move away from these
concepts and seek more universal language.
Tamimi notes that under the influence of such thinkers as Abdelwahab Elmessiri,
“the problem of Palestine is today seen by many Islamists, including leaders
and members of Hamas, simply as the outcome of a colonial project” which could
better be explained “in political, social or economic terms, than in terms of
religion.”
The new document reflects this thinking: “The Palestinian cause in its essence
is a cause of an occupied land and a displaced people.”
It also removes mention of Palestine as an Islamic waqf, affirming rather that
“Palestine is a land whose status has been elevated by Islam” – just as it has
been in other religions. Palestine is “the birthplace of Jesus Christ,” it
states, and the resting place of prophets.
Irish model?
In the new document, Hamas states that the “establishment of ‘Israel’ is
entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian
people.” It affirms that there will be no recognition of the “usurping Zionist
entity” or any concession on the right of return for refugees.
Yet in seeming contradiction, it states: “without compromising its rejection of
the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas
considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian
state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967,
with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which
they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”
In other words, Hamas is formally signing up to the two-state solution at the
very moment it is becoming clear that such an outcome will not come about.
Putting that aside, a good analogy for Hamas’ balancing act would be the Irish
nationalist party Sinn Féin’s acceptance of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which
entailed entering a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, while
simultaneously continuing to reject partition.
In the wake of last year’s British vote to exit the European Union, Sinn Féin
is reviving its campaign to abolish Northern Ireland and bring about a single
state on the island of Ireland, an outcome the Belfast Agreement allows if a
majority backs it in a referendum.
Something similar has been articulated by Hamas leaders for years. In a 2006
New York Times article, Hamas adviser Ahmed Yousef proposed a long-term truce,
or hudna, citing the Irish peace process as a model for ending conflict without
Palestinians abandoning their positions. A years-long “period of calm,” he
argued, might create later the conditions for a durable political settlement
that do not exist now.
In 2009, Meshaal told The New York Times that his party had “accepted a
Palestinian state on the 1967 borders including East Jerusalem, dismantling
settlements, and the right of return based on a long-term truce.”
The new document attempts a similar balancing act with respect to internal
Palestinian politics. It states that the 1993 Oslo accords signed between the
PLO and Israel “violate the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people” and
it strongly condemns as “collaboration” the ongoing “security coordination”
between Israeli forces and the PA.
But Hamas also accepts the PA as a reality, arguing that it should “serve the
Palestinian people and safeguard their security, their rights and their
national project.” Hamas also calls for rebuilding the PLO – of which it is not
currently a member – on “democratic foundations.”
Resistance
Since it won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, Hamas has been
subjected to discriminatory conditions by the so-called Quartet – the ad hoc
grouping of EU, UN, US and Russian officials – who claim authority over the
question of Palestine.
In order to be recognized as an interlocutor, Hamas is required to renounce
violence, recognize Israel and accept all previous agreements.
Israel, meanwhile, is not required to recognize a Palestinian state or any
Palestinian rights; Israel continues to use violence, not just with impunity
but with weapons supplied by Quartet states; and Israel routinely tramples
signed agreements and international law with its massive colonization of
occupied Palestinian land.
In its new document, Hamas asserts that resistance, including armed resistance,
“is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and
laws.” Indeed, the right to armed resistance against occupation is
internationally recognized.
But it also reserves “the right of our people to develop the means and
mechanisms of resistance.”
Hamas adds: “Managing resistance, in terms of escalation or de-escalation, or
in terms of diversifying the means and methods, is an integral part of the
process of managing the conflict and should not be at the expense of the
principle of resistance.”
In other words, Hamas sees armed resistance as something to be used or not used
as circumstances dictate. If a political horizon opens up, it can turn away
from armed resistance without conceding the right, just as other resistance and
liberation movements have done.
Transition
Israel, unsurprisingly, dismissed Hamas’ new document before it had even been
published, as a rebranding exercise designed to “fool the world.”
The reality, however, is that despite their differences, both major wings of
the Palestinian national movement have expressed varying degrees of readiness
for an accommodation with Israel.
It is Israel that stands adamantly against any political process or agreement
that would place a limit on its voracious theft of Palestinian land.
More than providing anything new, the Hamas document confirms and enshrines
long-term shifts in the movement’s thinking at a moment when it is about to
undergo a political transition – Meshaal announced last September that he would
soon be stepping down.
For all the significance that may have, it does not resolve the basic problem
afflicting the institutionalized Palestinian national movement: neither Hamas,
nor Fatah – its rival headed by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas – has a vision to
mobilize and unite Palestinians in a struggle for their rights and land at a
moment when the two-state solution has become irrelevant.
