https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/22/how-islamism-destroyed-the-palestinian-movement/amp/
Hamas was founded at the start of the first ‘intifada’ (uprising) against Israel in December 1987. This uprising was initially a popular movement that arose independently of the Palestinian nationalist leadership. In retrospect, this shows that the PLO was already starting to lose support among the Palestinian population, who were clearly losing faith in its strategy of combining terrorist attacks against Israeli targets with diplomacy.
By the mid-2000s, Hamas was in the ascendancy. In 2005, Israel decided to unilaterally withdraw soldiers and settlers from the Gaza strip. The following year, Hamas won a large majority of parliamentary seats in the Palestinian legislative elections, although with fewer than half (44 per cent) of the votes cast. The following year, Hamas purged nationalist elements of the Palestinian opposition by either executing, expelling or imprisoning them. There have been no elections in Gaza since.
As things stand, Islamist groups, including Hamas, seem to be in the process of attempting to take over the Palestinian-populated areas of the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank and is controlled by nationalists, is widely seen as corrupt and ineffective. A power struggle between Islamists and nationalists is expected to break out into the open once the PA’s president, 88-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, dies. No elections have been held since he was elected into office in 2005.
Hamas, however, is only one part of the story when it comes to Islamism in the region. It is all too often forgotten that Israel also faces another related Islamist threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies. The most notable of these are Hezbollah, a formidable political and military force in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. Iran has frequently threatened to destroy the Jewish State and Hezbollah has threatened to repeat the 7 October massacre on a much larger scale. The Houthis are also virulent anti-Semites. Having demanded that all remaining Jews leave Yemen in 2015, they are reportedly holding the last Yemeni Jew in detentionand torturing him.
Both Hezbollah and the Houthis have launched missiles at Israel in recent weeks. Although these attacks have received relatively little attention, owing to the focus on Gaza, Hezbollah actually poses a far greater military threat to Israel than Hamas. According to reports, it currently has 200,000 rockets aimed at Israel.
Iran shares some common features with Egypt. Until the overthrow of the Shah in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it was autocratic but relatively secular, with the power of religious leaders, the mullahs, generally kept in check. In the early 1970s, it would have been common to see Iranian women in Western-style dress. It was only when Iran became an Islamic republic that it became compulsory, under the threat of strict penalties, for women to wear clothing to disguise their figures.
Islamism thrived in Iran under strong Egyptian influence. That Egypt is an Arab country and its branch of Islam predominantly Sunni, while Iran is non-Arab and Shiite, has not impeded Islamism’s rise there. Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, has even translated four books by Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, into Farsi.
In line with Islamist ideology, Iran has sought to extend its influence by backing Islamist groups in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Yemen. Its goal is to create a kind of Islamist international that will transcend its own borders.
Of course, nationalist leaders, such as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, do still exist in the Middle East. But they tend to be more muted and defensive than they were in the mid-20th century. Across the region, Islamism is thriving amid the long-term defeat of secular nationalism.
This is deeply troubling. Islamism is, by its very nature, hostile to democratic rights and nation states. It brooks no dissent. Islamists’ ultimate aim is to replace the nation states in the Middle East with an Islamist international order. Above all, Islamism has fostered a genocidal hatred of Jews.
Those who still mistake Islamist groups like Hamas for a national-liberation movement are in for a rude awakening.
