Abstract
The dangers arising from Islamic fundamentalism in the Gaza Strip and West Bank are obvious: bombings and commitments to continue the armed struggle against Israeli occupation despite the signing of the Oslo agreements. The problem was true before the new Intifada of 2000 and it has heightened impact now. I will not address this except to say that the new conflict, at least in part, comes out of a social services structure that has crumbled over the past decade. The fundamental problem is that during the course of the Peace Process more people have become disenfranchised. This has led to more violence and radicalism, not less. The historic structure of ‘fundamentalist terrorism’2 has led to the idea that Islam and the West are somehow irreconcilably opposed to each other, resulting in what is referred to as the clash of civilizations, which assumes the Middle East and the West are two homogeneous entities lacking permeability, diversity, or nuance. No viewpoint could be more misleading.
This chapter is a slightly amended version of an article that first appeared as ‘Beyond Hamas: Islamic Activism in the Gaza Strip’, Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review, 2 (1995) 1–39. Reprinted with permission.
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Notes
A. Perlmutter, ‘The Israel-PLO Accord Is Dead’, Foreign Affairs, 74 (May–June 1995) 68.
Z. Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Jihad (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) p. 15.
J. L. Esposito, Islam: the Straight Path (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 218.
Several polls and surveys conducted in the Gaza Strip and West Bank confirm this point. For example, see W. K. Levitt, ‘Islamistes palestiniens, la nouvelle generation’, Le Monde Diplomatique (June 1995) 5; and Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), ‘People’s Opinion of the Palestinian Authority and Their Political Attitudes’ (Gaza City: Research Unit, GCMHP, February 1995).
For different approaches see, N. Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 1991);
J. L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992);
M. Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993);
O. Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994);
and B. Tibi, The Crisis of Modern Islam: a Pre-industrial Culture in the Scientific-Technological Age (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1988).
See S. Roy, The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1995).
For an analysis of Gaza’s social and political sectors, see S. Roy, ‘The Seed of Chaos, and of Night: The Gaza Strip After the Agreement’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 23 (Spring 1994) 85–92.
See S. Roy, ‘Report from Gaza: Alienation or Accommodation?’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 24 (Summer 1995) 73–82.
In addition, there is the Islamic Liberation Party and the Islamic Jihad Movement (Bayt al-Maqdis) that have limited political influence. See A. al-Jarbawi, ‘The Position of Palestinian Islamists on the Palestine-Israel Accord’, The Muslim World, 84 (January–April 1994) 127–34. There are several detailed works on the Islamic movement in the West Bank and Gaza. For example, Z. Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza; idem, ‘Hamas: a Historical and Political Background’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 22 (Summer 1993) 5–19;
A. Rashad, ‘Hamas: Palestinian Politics with an Islamic Hue’, Occasional Papers Series No. 2 (United Association for Studies and Research, October 1993);
M. K. Shadid, ‘The Muslim Brotherhood Movement in the West Bank and Gaza’, Third World Quarterly, 10 (April 1988) 658–82;
J-F. Legrain, ‘The Islamic Movement and the Intifada’, in J. R. Nassar and R. Heacock (eds), Intifada: Palestine at the Crossroads (New York: Praeger, 1990) pp. 175–89; ‘A Defining Moment: Palestinian Islamic Fundamentalism’, in J. Piscatori (ed.), Islamic Fundamentalisms and the Gulf Crisis (Chicago: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1991), pp. 70–87;
and M. Jubran and L. Drake, ‘The Islamic Fundamentalist Movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip’, Middle East Policy, 2 (1993) 1–15.
Abu-Amr, ‘Hamas: a Historical and Political Background’, 5–7. See also J. O. Voll, ‘Fundamentalism in the Sunni Arab World: Egypt and Sudan’, in M. E. Marty and R. S. Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms Observed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) pp. 345–402.
G. Usher, ‘The Rise of Political Islam in the Occupied Territories’, Middle East International, 25 (June 1993) 19; Abu-Amr, ‘Hamas: a Historical and Political Background’, p. 8, notes that between 1967 and 1987 the number of mosques grew from 200 to 600 in Gaza and 400 to 750 in the West Bank.
M. Budieri, ‘The Nationalist Dimension of Islamic Movements in Palestinian Politics’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 24, (Spring 1995) 93.
See N. Ayubi, ‘Rethinking the Public/Private Dichotomy: Radical Islamism and Civil Society in the Middle East’, Contention, 4 (Spring 1995) 89.
Ayubi, Political Islam, p. 230. See also S. Abed-Kotob, ‘The Accommodation-ists Speak: Goals and Strategies of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27 (August 1995) 326–7.
For a fascinating discussion of the problem at a broader theoretical level, see M. Kerr, Islamic Reform: the Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida (Berkeley, CA and London: University of California and Cambridge University Press, 1966).
Ayubi, Political Islam, p. 57. Original citation: Zakariyya S. Bayyumi, Al-Ikhwan al-muslimun was al-jama’at al-islamiyya [The Muslim Brothers and the Islamic Groupings] (Cairo: Wahba, 1979) p. 321.
F. Burgat and W. Dowell, The Islamic Movement in North Africa, Middle East Monograph Series (Austin, TX: University of Texas, 1993) p. 41.
Similar characteristics are described by A. M. Lesch, ‘The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: Reform or Revolution?’ in M. C. Moen and L. S. Gustafson (eds), The Religious Challenge to the State (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1992) p. 201.
Also see J. T. Cummings, H. Askari, and A. Mustafa, ‘Islam and Modern Economic Change’ in J. L. Esposito (ed.), Islam and Development: Religion and Sociopolitical Change (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1980) pp. 25–47.
See I. Pappe, ‘Moderation in Islam: Religion in the Test of Reality’, Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture, 2 (Spring 1994) 11–25;
and F. Halliday, Islam & the Myth of Confrontation (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996), especially pp. 107–32.
In this regard, see S. Erlanger, ‘Intelligence Experts Meet to Combat Mideast Terrorism’, New York Times, 30 March 1996, in which a senior French official stated, ‘Terrorism will be over when Palestinians feel they have their rights recognized’. Also see E. Beilin, ‘Civil Society and the Prospects for Political Reform in the Middle East’, Conference Report (New York: Civil Society in the Middle East Project, New York University, 1994) 12; Belin, 12 and Pappe, ‘Moderation in Islam’, 16–19.
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Roy, S. (2002). Between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority: Islamic Movements and Palestinian Development in the Gaza Strip. In: Wright, J.W. (eds) Structural Flaws in the Middle East Peace Process. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403907707_11
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