Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (21 page)

people and its country, that is, between the Palestinian people and Palestine as its homeland; (2) a territorial connection between the territory of Palestine and the Arab homeland; and (3) an ethnic connection between the Palestinian people and the Arab nation.73 These links are stated in largely secular terms. The secular nature of the document even resounds in the ideals that the Charter ascribes to the Palestinian people. Article 24 states,“The Palestinian people believe in the principles of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self- determination, human dignity, and the right of peoples to exercise them.”74 These notions are drawn much more from Western secular notions than they are from Quranic ones.

While secularism lies at the foundations of the Palestinian National Charter and the PLO, members of the PLO have often used Islamic and other religious ideas to motivate the Palestinian resistance. For example, Yasir Arafat frequently utilized Quranic imagery to inspire the Palestinians. In a speech which he gave in December 1987, for instance, he compared the struggle that the Palestinians faced with that of Muhammad’s first battle against the Quraysh, the Battle of Badr near Medina in 624, when, according to Arafat and many Muslims, the Prophet with only 300 inexperienced men defeated the vastly superior Meccan force of 1,000 men. Through this and other narratives drawn from Islamic history, Arafat and other PLO leaders have attempted to motivate Palestinians to fight against the Israelis for their liberation.75

After Israel’s success in the June War in 1967 and after it began to occupy the West Bank, among other areas, the PLO and affiliated Palestinian resist- ance groups, such as the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which had a strong Marxist foundation to its ideology, moved their operations to Jordan. These and other Palestinian groups used Jordan as an operational base for their militant actions against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. One immediate goal of these groups was to liberate the West Bank and Gaza of Israeli occupation and, as some Palestinians hoped, to liquidate Israel completely. These resistance organizations were operating almost completely outside of the control of Jordan’s King Hussein.

The violent militant actions of these Palestinian groups reached a dra- matic point in September 1970 when the PFLP hijacked three civilian airlin- ers and landed two of them in a desert area in Jordan which the Palestinians declared “liberated territory,” meaning, in their view, that area of Jordan belonged to the Palestinians. They landed the third civilian airplane in Cairo, Egypt. The members of the PFLP announced that the passengers of the planes would be freed only if PFLP members who had been imprisoned in Europe and Israel were released within 72 hours. The PFLP stated that if their demand was not met, the more than 300 passengers, many of them Americans, would be killed as the PFLP hijackers detonated the explosives with which they had wired the planes. By September 12, the hijackers’

demands had not been met and they detonated the explosives attached to the planes without killing any of the passengers. These events caused a major uprising on the part of the Palestinians against the Jordanian government and this violent uprising came to an end with the signing of a 14-point accord between King Hussein and Yasir Arafat on September 27, 1970.76

After these events, Yasir Arafat and the PLO moved their operations to Lebanon, which they used as a base of operations for attacks against Israel, which eventually invaded Lebanon in June 1982 with the hope of quashing the PLO and killing Yasir Arafat. (This became a three-month-long war and the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon lasted until 2000.)77 While the PLO was somewhat weakened as a result of the Israeli attack, which began in June 1982, Arafat left Beirut for Tunis in late August 1982, which gave the PLO an opportunity to regroup.78

Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza: 1967 and Beyond

In terms of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, from approximately the time that the occupation began in 1967 until 1977 (a period that was strongly influenced by the power of a liberal Labor Party- dominated government which held sway), some Israeli government leaders, such as Moshe Dayan (who served as Defense Minister in Labor-led Israeli governments through much of the 1970s), hoped that the occupation would be characterized by three principles: (1) non-presence, which involved minimizing visible signs of the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza in order to lessen potential conflict with the Palestinians; (2) non-interference, which involved placing responsibility for economic and administrative activities in Arab hands; and (3) open bridges, which involved renewing personal and economic contacts between the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, on the one hand, and people in Arab countries, on the other.79 With this three- pronged policy in mind, Moshe Dayan and others in the Israeli government hoped that positive economic, social, and political conditions for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (as well as a hoped-for integration of the Israeli, West Bank and Gaza economies into the wider Arab world) would lessen Palestinian resentment against Israel and thus decrease the potential influence of Palestinian resistance organizations. Yet, these three principles must be viewed with circumspection; in characterizing these stated goals, Joost Hiltermann observes, “To Palestinians, who have suffered … under a ruthless and ubiquitous military occupation these proclaimed objectives of ‘non-presence,’ ‘non-interference,’ and ‘open bridges’ must sound like a poor joke.”80

Indeed, in spite of this three-pronged policy, the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza endured harsh conditions under Israel’s military occupation, which included: (1) restrictive curfews; (2) virtually no political or adminis- trative rights; (3) living under constant Israeli surveillance; (4) requirements that Palestinians gain licenses from the Israelis for virtually every activity including travel to see family members; (5) living under Israeli military orders that the Palestinians could not appeal in any way; (6) far inferior housing, educational, employment, and other opportunities for Palestinians vis-à-vis Israelis; (7) the forcible exile of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza; (8) heavy restrictions on Palestinian freedom of speech and severe punishment for any criticism of the Israeli government; and (9) the demolishing and sealing of more than 1,200 Palestinian homes between 1967 and 1978.81

The election of the conservative Likud Party leader Menachem Begin as Israel’s Prime Minister in 1977 (with the subsequent appointment of Moshe Dayan as his Foreign Minister) made the difficult conditions under which Palestinians lived even worse. The policy of Begin and his Likud Party included the following goals: (1) to acquire control of as much of the land and resources in the West Bank and Gaza as possible; (2) to establish an overwhelming Jewish presence in the West Bank and Gaza through settlements in those majority-Palestinian areas and to build infrastructures of legal and support services for them; (3) to restrict virtually every form of Palestinian development; (4) to eventually fragment Palestinian population areas while connecting the areas of Jewish settlements; and (5) to gain ownership of properties that Palestinians owned through a variety of means including legal processes that enabled the Israeli government to seize properties that Palestinians owned but had not registered.82

These conditions and other factors contributed to the increased militancy of various Palestinian youths beginning in the early 1980s. There were at least five additional reasons for the increase in militancy among Palestinian youths during this period. First, a sharp downturn in the Israeli and Palestinian economies had a negative impact on Palestinian youths in numerous ways, including the fact that many lost their jobs and could not find new ones. Second, the increasing brutality of the occupation meant that Israeli soldiers were stopping, searching, detaining, arresting, and humiliating Palestinians. Third, Palestinian youths were growing increasingly frustrated with the older generation of Palestinians for their failure to improve the Palestinians’ situation. Related to this factor was the fact that during the PLO leadership’s periods of exile in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia, that organization became increasingly separated and alienated from the Palestinians who were suffering in the West Bank and Gaza.83 Fourth, Palestinians were required to pay taxes to Israel, which was aggravating to Palestinians because, in addition to placing a heavy burden on them,

it was funding the very occupation that was making their lives so difficult.84 Fifth, the policy of continually increasing Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and the consistent expropriation of Palestinian land stoked Palestinians’ anger. For example, when Menachem Begin took office as Israel’s Prime Minister in 1977 there were 24 settlements inhabited by 3,200 persons. When Begin resigned in 1983, the number of settlements had increased to 106 and the number of settlers to 28,400.85 As a part of the settlement activity, the Israeli government supervised two separate road systems in the West Bank: one safer, efficient, and well-maintained road system, which was for the primary use of Israeli Jews, and another dangerous, shabbily maintained road system with high accident rates which had multiple checkpoints and was continually patrolled by Israeli soldiers, which existed for the Palestinians. Many Israelis maintain that these separate road systems were established in order to lessen the likelihood of Palestinian attacks against Israelis and to connect Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, while many Palestinians maintain that these separate road systems were established to expand the influence of Israelis in the West Bank.86

Within this context, in 1981, a cycle of violence began with Palestinian youths engaging in physical resistance against Israeli soldiers in occupied areas.87 Palestinian high school students became increasingly active in strikes, boycotts, and public demonstrations opposing the Israeli occupation, while there was an increase in rock-throwing incidents. Palestinians increasingly performed these activities in broad daylight and seemed to be “undeterred by the consequences of their actions.”88

The First Palestinian Intifada, Hamas, and the PLO

These brewing antagonisms came to a head on December 9, 1987 after four Palestinians in Gaza had been killed and seven others injured by an Israeli vehicle the previous day.89 From the perspective of many Palestinians, this event constituted the final straw and precipitated the first Palestinian intifada (“uprising” or “revolt”) which began in 1987 and lasted until the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. This intifada or resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip took many forms, including Palestinians throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) vehicles, public demonstrations, bombings directed against Israelis, shootings of Israelis, kidnappings, strikes, boycotts of Israeli goods, and a tax rebellion. During the initial weeks of the intifada, there were spontaneous mass protests. Over time, the United National Leadership of the Intifada (UNL), which came into existence as a result of a number of grassroots networks that had been operating long before the intifada, coordinated the

protests, while providing medical, schooling, and welfare services.90 Through the frequent distribution of leaflets, the UNL informed the Palestinians of upcoming protests, attempted to motivate them in their struggle, and generally kept them informed of events related to the intifada.91 The UNL was comprised of professionals from several parts of Palestinian society including merchants, industrialists, physicians, engineers, and professors, for example.92 These individuals would then collect money from other people in their professions, who donated the proceeds of approximately one day’s work per week to the UNL. The UNL would use a portion of those funds for its work and then distribute, usually through social workers, another, usually significant, portion of the money to others actively involved in the intifada as well as to the poor and needy.93

One of the most important organizations to emerge around the time of the intifada is Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyah, which loosely translated means Movement of Islamic Resistance. Hamas was founded as an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Through Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic movement, after several years in existence, was able to emerge in a significant way in the West Bank and Gaza.94 Thus, Hamas, in addition to playing a key role in the intifada and posing a tangible challenge to Israel’s occupation, through its Islamic ideology and organization also posed a challenge to the PLO and other secular Palestinian organizations.95 Since Hamas formed as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had been operating previously in Egypt and later among the Palestinians, some background on the history of the Muslim Brotherhood among the Palestinians would be helpful.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s link with the Palestinians began in 1935, when Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, sent his brother Abd al-Rahman al-Banna to establish contacts there.96 The group’s membership grew steadily during the 1940s and 1950s. Throughout most of its existence among the Palestinians, the Brotherhood was primarily religious and social in nature. In the years following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza beginning in 1967, the Brotherhood among the Palestinians continued to concentrate mainly on what it described as the raising of a Muslim generation through the establishment and fostering of Islamic schools, social service organizations, and Muslim social clubs, for example.97

During the 1970s, the Muslim Brotherhood among the Palestinians was strengthened by the efforts of the dynamic preacher and co-founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, who founded al-Mujamma (the Islamic Center) which provided the impetus for the merger of the Muslim Brotherhood Societies in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jordan into a single organization called “The Muslim Brotherhood Society in Jordan and Palestine.”98 This reorgani- zation affected the position and policies of the Brotherhood in the occupied