Islamic fundamentalism can be seen daily in the headlines of the Western media. It is often presented in a simplified way as a backward-looking religious movement whose main aims are destroying the Western culture and political systems. On the other side, the Islamic fundamentalists blame those Muslims who have been influenced by the Western culture, for neglecting the Islamic values and practices. In their fundamentalist interpretation, Islam is narrowed down to a political doctrine that is considered the only source of reference in politics and society. In fact, despite different claims, Islam has not developed a proper political system; nevertheless it is true that its emphasis on the communal solidarity can be interpreted as that Islam has favored an exact political system of own throughout history. Modern fundamentalists sharpen this political aspect of the religion and try to make it the dominating interpretation. In this research essay, we are going to make a criticism of the violent actions of Hamas, one of the modern movements identified with Islamic fundamentalism, and try to prove that its actions can never be accepted for any goal.
Hamas has been a part of the politics of the twentieth century being an oppositional populist movement in the Middle East. Hamas has used Islam as a source for official legitimating of the state that they wish to establish in Palestine (Nüsse 65). The top item on the agenda of Hamas is liberating Palestine through a holy war from the Zionist enemy, establishing an Islamic state on the soil of Palestine, and reforming the society that lives in the Palestine region in the spirit of true Islam (Nüsse 47). It is this Islamic vision, combined with its nationalist claims and militancy towards Israel, that accounts for the popular image of Hamas as an ideologically uncompromising and politically rigid movement, ready to pursue its goals at any cost, with no limits or constraints. Islamic and national zeal and strategies of terror and violence against Israel have become the movement’s characteristic, and such a terrorist character cannot definitely be justified in the contemporary world order.
In this part, we are going to briefly give some historical information about The Palestinian question and the establishment of Hamas. Hamas, meaning “zeal”, emerged as an Islamic alternative to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) with the outbreak of the first Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of Gaza Strip, West Bank and some parts of Jerusalem which started with the 1967 War (“The 1967 War and the Israeli Occupation”). According to the Palestinians, this occupation was and has been a product of the policies and practices of the Israeli state (the current map can be seen on the right), whose foundation was laid with the League of Nations Mandate of Palestine assigned to Britain in 1920 and which was established in 14th May 1948 as the British withdrawn from Palestine (“British Mandate of Palestine”). These policies and practices has been based on confiscation of land, construction of settlements and movement of settlers into the occupied Palestinian territories, crushing of Palestinian resistance movements- politically and military, violation of human rights and international law, and annexation of Jerusalem in order to establish it as the capital of the Israeli state (“Israeli Occupation and Initifada”). After the 1967 War, the Israeli state multiplied its territory four times (Karakuş). In violation of international law, Israel has confiscated over 52 percent of the land in the West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military use or for settlement by Jewish civilians. From 1967 to 1982, Israel's military government demolished 1,338 Palestinian homes on the West Bank. Over this period, more than 300,000 Palestinians were detained without trial for various periods by Israeli security forces (“The 1967 War and the Israeli Occupation”). Moreover, as Dr Qouta (1996) states, because of the Zionist occupiers, most of the Palestinians have experienced the Israeli army breaking into the home, beating relatives, destroying things; many were beaten themselves, had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had these things happen to siblings and neighbors. In order to end these Zionist actions, Hamas developed from the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, which arose in Egypt in the 1920s. Beginning in the late 1960s, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (seen in the picture on the left), preached and did charitable work in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both of which were occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. In 1973, Yassin established the Islamic Center (al-Mujamma’ al-Islami) to coordinate the Muslim Brotherhood’s political activities in Gaza. Yassin founded Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood’s local political arm in December 1987. After some time, Hamas separated from the Muslim Brotherhood, and started to activate its terrorist character against the Israeli Zionist occupiers and their supporters in Palestine (HAMAS). It is believed that since its first suicide bombing in April 1993, Hamas has killed more than 500 people in more than 350 separate terrorist attacks (“Hamas, Islamic Jihad - Palestinian Islamists”). On these grounds, we can clearly say that a strong revisionist outcry concerning national goals and means as well as social and moral rules marked Hamas’ burst onto the center stage of Palestinian politics.
According to many people, Hamas, since it was established, has always targeted the Israeli civilians. However, during the first Intifada, Hamas claims, they targeted only Zionist soldiers and settlements; but after a Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein, gunned down twenty nine Muslim worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron on 25th February 1994, Hamas began to attack the Zionist civilians. This Zionist mass murder was on the top of the daily crimes, humiliations, beatings and shootings done by the Zionists against Palestinian civilians at that time, and at the present time as well. Therefore, it is a duty for all the Muslims to participate in Jihad, the struggle in the name of Allah, against Israel in Palestine (“The Charter of the Hamas”). Hamas says,
When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad becomes a duty binding on all Muslims. In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad. This would require the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses on all local, Arab and Islamic levels. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters. (“The Charter of the Hamas”)
It is actually true that, as Hamas rightfully protests, there is an illegal occupation by the Zionists in Palestine for many years. What is more, it can be said that they killed many Muslim civilians with or without any reason. But Hamas must not have reacted in a violent way as its members have killed hundreds of the Jewish. This is because such useless reactions have always increased the conflicts, and these conflicts have taken both sides away from peace for years. Since Hamas does not stop its terrorist attacks, this situation will probably continue for more years.
Hamas has been largely based on the Muslim Brotherhood’s framework of thought. However the policies and actions of Hamas mark a major change from the Muslim Brotherhood politics. Especially until the outbreak of the First Intifada, which lasted between 1987 and 1993, the Muslim Brotherhood had not wanted to actively participate in the resistance against the Israeli occupation. It had focused on the traditional fundamentalist activities of religious education and moral purification of the society, considering this as a general duty for all the Muslims throughout the Arabic world. On the other hand, Israel has been presented by Hamas as a purely religious state which is part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy against the Muslims in particular and the whole world in general. According to Hamas, Zionists are barbaric people. On these grounds, Hamas claims, they are right to go on a war against the Zionists. Moreover, Hamas claims that even God itself has commended them to destroy those Zionists, because God, Allah, says:
You are the best nation that had been raised up into mankind: you command that which is just, and you forbid that which is unjust, and you believe in Allah. And if they who have received the scriptures had believed, it had surely been better for them. They have incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them. That is because they used to disbelieve the revelations of Allah, and slew the Prophets wrongfully. That is because they were rebellious and used to transgress. (The Koran)
With the words of Allah, Hamas tries to justify its murders. However, punishing the human beings for their sins or for anything is the work of Allah itself, not of Hamas. Therefore their violent attitude towards any other people, including the Jewish, can never be justified in front of Allah. Islam always asks people to live in peace, and they have to approach to any war with peace.
Hamas has widened its base of supporters and sympathizers, as it states, “the organization world-wide enjoys millions of sympathizers for its admirable struggle against the barbaric Zionist occupation and crimes” (“The Charter of the Hamas”). A great part of the success of Hamas is due to its influence in the Gaza Strip. The large numbers of refugees, the socio-economic hardships of the population in the refugee camps and the relatively low status of the nationalist elements there until recently, enabled Hamas to deepen its roots among the refugees (above on the right is a view from Maghazi, a refugee camp in Gaza). Hamas' prestige, according to itself, is based on both its ideological and practical capabilities, as a movement whose contribution to the daily life of the Palestinians is not less than its contribution to the struggle against Israel and the occupation. Additionally, its emphasis on a solution that would include the liberation of all Palestine is more attractive to the Gazans, beyond the social factors that nourish the Islamic influence in that area (“The Charter of the Hamas”). So, Hamas has easily made those Palestinians who need help, particularly those living in the camps in Gaza, its tool by deceiving and taking them in, in order to take support for its terrorist methods and achieve its political goals in Palestine. Even, those Palestinians who support the terrorist tactic say that suicide attacks are a legitimate way of resisting Israeli occupation (“Hamas, Islamic Jihad - Palestinian Islamists”). However since they kill the innocent civilian Israelis besides soldiers, their war can never be justified; and since, as Heywood puts it, the word “legitimate” literally means “lawful and rightful” (210), the organization’s illegal terrorist acts can not be legitimate at all.
Another factor, which served the popularity of the Islamic phenomena, is that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), both of which were established in the Gaza Strip in and led by Yasser Arafat (seen on the right), have started to lose their resistance against the Zionist occupiers; and especially after the death of Arafat in November 2004, the Palestinian administration has speeded up the peace negotiations with Israel in the way that the Zionists wishes (Karakuş). Therefore, Hamas has challenged first the PLO’s status as the exclusive political force and sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and, second, the PNA. Hamas disagrees with the PLO’s peace policy and the efforts to come to an agreement with Israel, since in the eyes of the organization Palestine is still under Israeli occupation and no change has taken place at all. Hamas does not follow the call of the PLO for unification (Soğukdere). Hamas has also opposed the PLO’s secular nationalism and political program for Palestinian statehood and national territory. Hamas states that,
secularism completely contradicts religious ideology. Attitudes, conduct and decisions stem from ideologies. That is why, with all appreciation for the Palestinian Liberation Organization - and what it can develop into – and without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea. (“The Charter of the Hamas”)
Hamas has appropriated the original Palestinian strategic goals and means historically identified with the PLO, and has placed them in an Islamic context and meaning. On the other hand, with all the insults and threats concerning Arafat's tendencies towards “individualist democracy” under the framework of the PNA, “Hamas has viewed the independent Palestinian regime as a target to conquer” with the aim of replacing it with the Islamic regime (“Hamas’ Violent Peace”). Consequently, it is possible to say that by invoking an Islamic-national vision and community activism, Hamas is able to combine religious doctrine with national concerns in terrorist way. With this profile, Hamas causes the absence of peace in Palestine to continue.
The conflict between Hamas and the Jewish has a very complex issue. It is clear that the Zionists has taken most of Palestine illegally and by force from the Arabs, and blamed the victims for resisting their dispossession. Therefore, the Israeli government and the Jewish peace groups should criticize themselves for their acts although it is hard to accept emotionally. Given the damage that has been done to the Palestinian people, Israel's obligation is to make whatever amends possible. On the other hand, Hamas’ terrorism, which besmirches the Islamic values, is totally unacceptable. Hamas, which considers itself as the legitimate representative of the Muslims in Palestine but is not able to keep them away from bloody wars, should criticize itself as well and give support to the peace process ending its violent terrorist acts.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nüsse, Andrea. Muslim Palestine: The Ideology of Hamas. Harwood Academic Publishers: Amsterdam, 1998.
Mishal, Shaul. The Palestinian Hamas. Columbia University Press: New York, 2000.
Kişisel sayfama hoşgeldiniz. Burada benim ders notlarım ve projelerimin yanı sıra tarihi ve güncel konu ve olaylarla ilgili yapmış olduğum araştırmaları bulabilirsiniz. Sayfamda siyasetten sanata, spordan günlük yaşama kadar farklı konularda naçizane bilgi ve görüşlerimi sizlerle paylaşacağım.
"Herkes benim düşünceme katılırsa yanılmış olmaktan korkarım." Oscar Wilde
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder