As an overtly Islamist political organisation, Hamas challenged the PLO and scored impressive electoral victories, particularly in Gaza but also in the West Bank.
Its radical rhetoric and commitment to armed struggle have enthused a population who despair that their leaders have become trapped in a failing ‘peace process’.
In 2007 Fatah was compelled to form a national unity government with Hamas. Three months later, amid open fighting between Hamas and Fatah forces, Hamas took power in Gaza. However, Israel refuses to recognise Hamas.
Trouble on the streets
At the same time, with the Gazans besieged, starving and unable to obtain essential medical supplies (unemployment is over 37% and 75% of the population live in poverty), Hamas is struggling to deal with the responsibilities of political power.
The government has come into conflict with journalists demanding free speech, the unemployed demanding work, trade unionists demanding proper pay. Hamas is increasingly being accused by Palestinians themselves of ruling through intimidation.
Fatah supporters in Gaza accuse Hamas of playing politics within the mosques – using Friday prayers to lash worshippers’ political allegiance to Hamas. Muslims who are Fatah supporters have responded by organising Friday prayers outside the mosques, where they won’t be harangued by political imams of Hamas.
But the political leaders have ordered their police force to beat those praying outside. Meanwhile Hamas are bringing the justice system more into line with Shariah than with secular law.
Within Israel, too, right wing religious movements have gained momentum from the absence of any serious peace process. They seek to strengthen the religious character of the State of Israel through placing more restrictions on civil life and are pushing for further Jewish settlement of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The late Maxim Ghilan, an Israeli who pioneered clandestine contacts between Israeli and Palestinian peace seekers in the 1970s and remained close to Arafat, once declared: ‘It’s coexistence or no existence.’
Despite the claims of religion to love peace and foster harmony, the current convergence of religion and politics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens to push the prospects of coexistence and respect for human rights further and further away.
