Competing narratives and the creation of Hamas

Hamas was established as a direct response to the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada.

This fact is uncontested, in the relevant literature, within Hamas, and among its political opponents (Caridi 2010; Gunning 2008; Hroub 2000; Milton-Edwards and Farrell 2010;

Mishal and Sela 2000).¹⁹⁰ And this is also where the consensus ends with regard to the early history of Hamas. Whereas the competitors and enemies of Hamas—in particular Fatah—

claim that Hamas is an Israeli creation, Hamas itself traces its lineage of resistance directly and all the way back to ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam, a Syrian cleric fighting for Palestinian liberation in the 1930s (Filiu 2012, 54–55). As for the literature, it is largely in agreement on the main points, e.g., that Hamas was founded as a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza to take part in the intifada.

For Fatah it is rational—at least in the short term—to promote a historical narrative that puts their domestic nemesis in league with Israel. And their version of history goes roughly as follows: The strength and cohesion of the PLO was such that it at times threatened the Israeli occupation. This prompted the occupier to do as occupiers have done to its occupied for ages, adopt a strategy of divide et impera. By establishing—or in the more modest versions of the history, assist in establishing or allow for the establishment of—Hamas, Israel successfully drove a wedge between the different Palestinian factions, dividing their leaders, thus weakening them all, and thereby making it easier to uphold and manage the occupation. And despite vehement protests from Hamas, there is some merit to this version of history. In short, the Muslim Brotherhood was largely free to operate its auxiliary organizations within the occupied territories throughout the 1980s, and its members had almost unrestricted freedom of movement. This stands in stark contrast to the way in which Israel treated the nationalists, whose members were often persecuted and imprisoned, and whose organizations were outlawed (Shadid 1988, 674–75).¹⁹¹ There are also some Israeli sources supporting this 190 In all the interviews in which the topic of Hamas’s establishment came up, the interviewees—whether from

Hamas or not—agreed that the movement was established as a direct response to the first intifada.

191 Following the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip in 1967, it took the IDF four years and immense military resources to pacify and root out the nationalist resistance there. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced to relocate, thousands were imprisoned, and hundreds of resistance fighters were killed (Filiu 2012,

version of events, such as IDF commander of the Gaza Strip, Zvi Poleg, who is on record claiming that

Hamas was set up by us, in the mid-1980s, as a competitive movement to the PLO. The idea was that Hamas would carry out cultural, educational, and humanitarian activities. Within a few months the movement became more militant and began leading the violent resistance, including the use of guns against the IDF (quote from interview in Mideast Mirror, December 15, 1994, reproduced in Robinson 2004, 137).

Others attempt to moderate Israel’s responsibility in creating Hamas, but admit openly that they allowed the Brotherhood to operate far more freely than the PLO factions, exactly in the hope that a strong, Islamist movement could counterbalance the PLO and make the Palestinians within the occupied territories more easily ruled (see e.g., quotes in Higgins 2009). In social movement theory parlance,¹⁹² this tactic pursued by the Israelis led to an opening in the political opportunity structures for the Brotherhood. In his analysis of Hamas as a social movement organization, Robinson argues that the “political space provided [by Israel] to the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the 1980s was critical to the development of the Islamist movement in Palestine” (2004, 124).¹⁹³

While Hamas naturally disagrees with the parts of this narrative that puts them in league with Israel, it is impossible to deny that the movement historically did receive preferential treatment.¹⁹⁴ For one, it is well documented that the immediate organizational forerunner to Hamas, the Islamic Center,¹⁹⁵ was established by the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza in 1973, first with the tacit approval of the Israelis, and from 1979 with legal status granted by the occupation (Abu-Amr 1994a, 16; Filiu 2012, 64; Sayigh 1997, 628–29).

Understandably, Hamas members prefer to ignore or touch only briefly upon this aspect of

63).

192 See, for example, Tarrow (2011, 32).

193 Robinson points to the victory of the Likud party in Israel in 1977 as the explanation for this divide et impera strategy toward the Palestinians, and thus also as a key factor leading to the creation of Hamas (2004, 123).

194 Indeed, some Hamas cadres have expressed a sort of gratitude for Israel’s naïvety vis-à-vis the Muslim Brotherhood in this period. For example, Muhammad Nazzal, Hamas’s representative in Jordan, said in an interview with Robinson that Israel “thought its security was enhanced by allowing us to grow, without thinking what might happen down the road” (1997, 157). See also the section Hamas at the end of the first intifada on pp. 136–138.

195 In Arabic the name of the Center was al-Mujamma al-Islami, by some authors, e.g., Sayigh (1997, 628–

29), translated as the Islamic Complex.

their history. And when they do mention the 1973 establishment of the Islamic Center, it is portrayed as a premeditated decision that would lead to the establishment of an organization such as Hamas.¹⁹⁶

What is often highlighted when Hamas members retell their history is the alleged tradition in the Brotherhood for resisting the Israeli occupation. Admittedly, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood did train and dispatch soldiers to fight in the 1948 war against Israel (El-Awaisi 1998; Mitchell 1969, 55–58), and a number of famous Palestinian resistance fighters were initially members of the Brotherhood in Gaza. However, the Brothers who fought in the 1948 war were few and achieved little success. Furthermore, while people like Khalil al-Wazir and Salah Khalaf, better known by their noms de guerre Abu Jihad and Abu Iyad, were indeed members in the Brotherhood in the 1950s (Filiu 2012, 60; Hadi 2006, 111 and 205), they left because the Brotherhood refused to take up arms against the resistance (Shadid 1988, 662).

Instead, they joined Yasser Arafat—himself close to but probably not a member of the Brotherhood—to found Fatah.¹⁹⁷ So, while there are grains of truth in the Hamas narrative emphasizing the early role of the Brotherhood in resisting the Israeli occupation, their claim of an unbroken tradition of resistance in the Islamic movement in Palestine is clearly an exaggeration.

Another point emphasized in the Hamas narrative was the decision made by Sheikh Yassin and the Islamic Center to begin military work in the early 1980s.¹⁹⁸ In particular, they point to the imprisonment of Sheikh Yassin in June of 1984 as proof of their resistance against the occupation. He was captured by Israel following their discovery of a small weapons cache in a mosque in Gaza. These weapons, however, were intended to aid the Brotherhood in their ongoing fight against other Palestinian movements (Filiu 2012, 65).¹⁹⁹ Among others, Shadid convincingly argues that the Brotherhood saw the Islamization of society as a prerequisite for the coming liberation of Palestine. This prioritization of goals in turn led the Brotherhood to define secularization as a major obstacle to the return to Islam, and consequently their immediate fight was with the communists and nationalists, not Israel and the occupation (1988, 680). As such, Hamas’s version of events in this period is somewhat at odds with 196 This was the case, for example, in one interview with Hamas leader Dr. Mohammad Ghazal (interviewed in

Nablus, September 29, 2011).

197 According to Sayigh, “his exact status as supporter or member remains uncertain,” but it is clear that he was close to the Brotherhood (1997, 81).

198 Dr. Mohammad Ghazal, interviewed in Nablus, September 29, 2011.

199 Both Shadid (1988) and Sayigh (1997, 629), among others, mention and document how the Muslim Brotherhood and their affiliates used violence against other Palestinian movements in the early 1980s.

documented history, effectively questioning the validity of their narrative of being the continuation of a long and unbroken Islamic tradition of resisting Israel.

In addition to the obvious—that the early history of Hamas is contested—the above provides important insights into the self-perception of Hamas, and consequently indications as to how the identity within Hamas was created. It is argued here that the widespread belief within Hamas that it constitutes the last incarnation of Islamic resistance movements in Palestine is indicative of a skillful construction of a historical narrative as a mechanism to produce a collective identity (Porta and Diani 2006, 95–96). By exaggerating their ancestors’ role in fighting Israel, Hamas is effectively tapping into the main source of identity formation available to Palestinians, namely the occupation itself.