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Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East, by Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, editors
10. The Palestinians
Tensions Between Nationalist and Religious Identities
Musa Budeiri
The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the advent of the secularizing Turkish Republic as its successor state signalled the end of what to the Muslim inhabitants of the empire was the Caliphate state, Dawlat al-Khilafa. Its Arab territories, now occupied and partitioned by Britain and France, were no longer administered according to the Islamic shari'a. A process was under way that relegated Islamic practice to the private sphere. This process remained uninterrupted in the postcolonial era. Independence and statehood did not halt or even slow down the pace of secularization, which while not as radical and abrupt as that undertaken by Kemalist Turkey, nevertheless seemed to indicate that the social role of Islam would "continue to shrink until it became at most a matter of private observance."
This has not taken place. A vibrant and often violent Islamic movement is challenging the legitimacy of nearly every existing Arab regime. The radical activism of Islamic movements is not usually viewed in terms of a newfound belief, or as a manifestation of heightened or profound religiosity. Rather, this is perceived as the outward expression of the denial of a reality that is held to be corrupt and in need of transformation. The return to Islam is not the outcome of a religious conversion but the outward manifestation of the rejection of the status quo. Islam here assumes the role of "a last line of defense." 2 On the material level, radical Islamic movements are the legitimate offspring of the slums and working-class districts of metropolitan centers that house an underclass of poor workers and new immigrants from the countryside. These are the end product of a two-pronged process: the secular state educational system established in the post-World War II period, and the massive rural-urban migration called forth by the economic policies pursued by the state under the slogan of industrialization and development.
On another level it is recognized that the retreat of existing ideologies, whether nationalist or socialist, has created a vacuum. 3 In their search for a source of power and a source of unity in order to accomplish what secular ideologies have failed to deliver, people turn to religion. The ruling regimes are viewed as a blocking force threatening any kind of action that would subvert the political, economic, cultural, and military hegemony exercised by the West and that is seen as posing a threat to Arab national identity. The Arab nation is deemed to be under siege both physically and morally. Sheltering within Islam, it is hoped, will arrest this process of disintegration. If nothing else, Islam serves to define a distinct identity for the people, while at the same time providing a sense of psychological compensation for the prevailing bad times, al-zaman al-radi'.
Not everyone subscribes to an explanation that tends to search and find answers in the secular sphere. To many observers the visible part of the Islamic effort in the emphasis it pays to ritual, separation of the sexes, clothes, prayer, etc., does not indicate a preoccupation with core problems in the economic and social realm. Indeed, no program of significant economic transformation appears to be on offer. Thus the existence of these movements must be accounted for in other ways. We have to look to the realm of politics. They are in fact radical nationalist in import and "only marginally Islamic." It is the political role that Islam itself is wont to perform that is the real issue. 4 Drawing legitimacy from religious rhetoric, Islamic movements bring together the politically disaffected, the socioeconomically disadvantaged, and the spiritually frustrated. The very essence of these movements' activities is the attempt to "recenter society and politics around Islamic values" 5 in the belief that only Islam is capable of preserving Muslim identity from being submerged by the tidal waves of Western culture circling the globe.
A number of Islamic thinkers reject as artificial the separation between religious and nationalist discourse. Taking Kawakibi as an example, they argue that the intellectual and political movement that gave birth to Arab nationalism came out from "under the Islamic robes . . . from the pit of Islamic society," 6 and was only secularized later on. The intellectual origins of Arab nationalism we are told, arose from within al-halla al-Islamiyya (the Islamic condition). Kawakibi spoke as an Arab and a Muslim; he "did not have to choose between his Arabism and his Islam." 7 The insistence on a separation of Islam from Arabism is the work of nationalist ideologues, and it is they who have created this false dichotomy in people's minds. 8 Now with the defeat of the nationalist project, people have turned to the Islamic trend. At the core of this misunderstanding is the conflict between Nasser as the symbol of Arab nation alism in the 1950s and 1960s and the Egyptian Muslim Brothers movement. This was simply a moment in an otherwise symbiotic relationship with nothing inevitable or everlasting about it. Current attempts at bridging the gap between nationalists and Islamists highlight the areas of common ground.
There is no denying that Islamic radicalism "feeds on the same slogans as far as content is concerned as radical nationalism did in a previous era." 10 Thus nationalists are able to accommodate themselves to a political Islam that is merely an extension of Arab radicalism, while Islamists viewing Arabism in Islamic terms, treat Arab identity as being subservient to and as an appendix of Islam. Secularists on the other hand, critical of the extravagant claims increasingly being put forward by neo-Islamist ideology, stress the absurd practice of using sacred texts to arrive at an identification with what is essentially a modernist ideological stance, 11 namely "nationalism in its fascist manifestation." 12
The Arab inhabitants of the Empire seem to have been the last of the Sultan's subjects to experience an awareness of selfhood that went beyond religious affiliation. It is possible that they entertained overlapping self views or identities without feeling that this involved a contradiction at all. For the most part, they were Muslims, Arabs, and Ottomans. To the end of World War I, that is, the destruction of the empire at the hands of its external foes, the majority of the Arab political class, the a'yan (notables), remained loyal Ottomanists, and Arab nationalism as an organized political movement remained a minority strand. 13
The situation was transformed as a consequence of the 1908 Revolution. This resulted in the loss of legitimacy as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) pursued a path of Turkification, which eventually detracted from the Islamic character of the empire and led to the withdrawal of support. Two Islamic trends are discernable as a consequence of these transformations. The first continued to support the state primarily because it was Islamic and thus had to be defended against foreign powers. This support did not diminish as a result of Jamal Pasha's draconian policies. Supporters of the Anglo-French alliance were regarded as self-serving and ambitious, and at times even as agents of imperialist powers. It was only when Faysal was ensconced in Damascus or well on his way there that they threw in their lot with the nationalist cause. The other trend was likewise averse to severing ties with the Ottomans but declared for the nationalist side as a result of disillusionment with CUP policies that were increasingly difficult to defend. With the passage of the war years, nationalist demands were becoming legitimate among the a'yan class and no longer a bid'a (innovation). But there is no evidence to suggest that nationalist sentiment, much less activity, was evenly spread throughout the various parts of Suriyya al-Tabi'iyya.
The existing territorial states that today occupy the space of geographic Syria, with the notable and problematic exception of Israel, did not come about as a result of the triumph of national movements aspiring to nationhood and self determination. With the exception of Egypt, the Arab Mashriq does not seem to possess a state formation with an ancient and well-defined structure. There were no significant political movements in Iraq, Syria, or Palestine calling for the establishment of an Iraqi or Palestinian nation-state at the turn of the century. In the words of a prominent Egyptian diplomat, existing Arab states were established "by mistake." 14 Consequently, the existing territorial states of today are of recent parentage, and nation-building was the consequence of the "Mandated Nationhood" 15 imposed on a colonially dominated Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. 16 The absence of a Palestinian nation-state would render the task of nation-building in that particular case a more daunting endeavor. It is not clear however that Lebanon, with its continuing confessional tensions, or Iraq, with its dissenting Kurdish and Shi'ite populations, have proved successful in this enterprise.
The Arab national movement that took center stage in the aftermath of Ottoman defeat and disintegration allied itself with the Hashimites who, eager to fulfill their dynastic ambitions, had in turn attached themselves to the British. Previous to its occupation by British and Australian troops, the area defined as Palestine was made up of two administrative districts. The north, encompassing Nablus and Tiberias, was centered on Beirut. The southern parts made up the Mutasarrifiyya of Jerusalem, whereas those parts that lay to the east of the river Jordan were part of the Wilaya of Damascus. When Faysal was crowned King of Syria in Damascus it was self-evident that his domains would include the southern part of Syria currently under control of the British. Palestinian delegates represented the inhabitants of Southern Syria in the First General Syrian Congress held in Damascus in 1919. This is not to deny that participation of Palestinians in the narrow elite that constituted the Arab national movement was demonstrably weak. There was no counterpart to the Iraqi or Syrian class of notables making their own bid for power and statehood. Even after it became clear that Britain was not going to relinquish its control and that Faysal himself was not going to risk a clash with the British, the inhabitants of Southern Syria continued to look to Damascus. Not only were there no local contenders for separate statehood in Palestine, an indication that the local elite was well integrated into the wider Syrian class of a'yan, but it was only after Faysal's defeat and expulsion from Damascus that the realization dawned that they had to assume responsibility for their own fate separate from other Syrians who were now preoccupied with their own narrow territorial agendas.
Forced to fend for themselves, the inhabitants of Mandated Palestine were ill-equipped for the task at hand. It is indeed possible to argue that they did not succeed, throughout the Mandate years, in establishing a strong and unified national movement. Furthermore, they demonstrated an inability to overcome factionalism, to marshall their resources, and to mount an effective defense of their very existence. There is no evidence to support the contention that there already existed among them a strand "supportive of a distinctly Palestinian nationalism," stressing local Palestinian independence and cooperation with the British. If as the author asserts "the pull of Palestinian nationalism ultimately prevailed," 17 this was the result of an externally enforced partition of Syria that left no viable option other than giving priority to the organization of a local nationalist movement. In point of fact, and despite the British occupation, there was initially an insistence on the attachment to Syria, and this continued to manifest itself, both orally and organizationally. 18 Palestine was not a distinct geographic historic entity whose people had had a separate historical existence since time immemorial. Prior to the British occupation, the country was made up, as mentioned earlier, of various administrative districts whose borders bore little resemblance to the Victorian imagination of Biblical Palestine.
The key to an understanding of the future development of Palestinian identity lies in the recognition that it was the establishment of territorial states in the region that played a pivotal role in the shaping of their peoples' identities. Unlike other Islamists who are currently challenging the legitimacy of the national state, the Islamic movement in Palestine was instrumental from the very beginning of the British Mandate in assimilating a nationalist discourse. It is indeed difficult to establish a demarcation line separating Islamists from their "nationalist enemies" when reviewing the activities of the national movement in the years of the Mandate. The first nationalist response to the British occupation was the establishment of Muslim/Christian societies in the summer of 1918. Branches were established throughout Palestine, and they held their first Congress in January 1919 as a demonstration of national unity. The Islamic idea was not central to these organizations' activities, and they have been characterized by an Islamic writer as "secular and nationalist," though they were usually headed by prominent religious figures. 19 The weakness of a nationally grounded identity and the narrower focus of loyalty based on smaller reference groups was evident from the very start. Despite the existence of two enemies, the British and the Zionist movement, the Husayni/Nashashibi rivalry exhibited itself at an early date, in the form of the establishment of competing organizational structures; the rival National Muslim Societies. Founded in 1922 and expressing support for the British proposed Legislative Council, they declared their acceptance of the Mandate in direct opposition to the stand taken by the Mufti as the most prominent spokesperson of the national movement. The announcement of their foundation was couched in Islamic language, as was the fatwa of the Mufti of Jerusalem against land sales to Jews. 20 The overt articulation of goals and policies was expressed in terms of Islam. Indeed it could not have been otherwise. No other ideological idiom would have been familiar or comprehensible to the rural inhabitants of the country, who constituted a majority and to whom the idea of nation and national interest was totally alien. 21
Throughout the Mandate period Islam served to shape an ideology of resistance to an other, who not only belonged to a different faith but was also an outsider and openly proclaimed that the realization of his aims involved emptying the country of its original inhabitants. The tools for this campaign were the Imams and Khatibs of village and town mosques who used the Friday sermon to convey the necessity of resistance as a religious duty. Islamic concepts and historical parallels were utilized to mobilize the people en masse to social action. Religion was the medium not the message. The language and the symbols were cultural categories familiar to a society that through the long years of Ottoman rule had grown accustomed to viewing itself in religious terms. Concepts such as Jihad, Shahid, Fida'i, al-Buraq, al-Ard al-Muqaddasa were the terms commonly and frequently employed in the nationalist discourse of the period. The Crusades were repeatedly conjured up to give historical depth and to inculcate a sense of historical continuity to peoples' sense of identity. It is not that the Palestinians betrayed an early fundamentalist bias or possessed a doctrinal bent, but their struggle against Jewish colonization was perceived in religious terms and this was their only recognizable Weltanschauung.
During the thirty-odd years of British rule, the Palestinians produced two heroes. Both were religious figures, though their invented histories are more firmly embedded in the realm of nationalist mythology and martyrdom than in their strictly religious roles as 'ulama. These were Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam, a lowly religious functionary and political exile from Syria. 22 For both, their political activism was unquestionably part and parcel of their religious beliefs, yet neither established or laid the foundations for an Islamic grounded organization.
Islam was a mobilizing force that the Mufti utilized to highlight the threat to Muslim hegemony in Palestine. The historical narrative concerning al-Qassam is rather sparse. Very little factual evidence exists regarding what the man actually said or did during his sojourn in Palestine. 23 Moreover he was killed on his first encounter with British troops in 1935. Despite the fact that very few people were acquainted with his activities before his death, this in no way diminished the growing perception of the importance of his role in the ensuing struggle for Palestinian independence 24 since he was first rediscovered in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He has since been rediscovered on numerous occasions, both by academics, 25 and eventually by Islamic propagandists. 26 His deeds and personality have been highly extolled by the most radical leftist and secular groups within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 27 while Israelis have credited him with having founded "the first Arab terrorist movement in Palestine." 28
Al-Qassam is lionized by both nationalist and Islamic sources for having initiated the most heroic period of contemporary Palestinian history, the 1936 rebellion. His movement is deemed to have constituted the organized backbone of the three-year armed struggle against the British that ensued. 29 Irrespective of the historical validity of such a claim, it is undeniable that the al-Qassam legacy has been utilized in a way that is conducive to heightening the popular conception of armed struggle "as a religious and therefore a moral and ethical duty." From the little we know about him, it would appear reasonable to assume that Islam was the "dominant organising idiom and motivation" for al-Qassam's movement. Posthumously his martyrdom served to transform Islam from being a part of a'yan politics to becoming a means of mobilizing popular participation in the struggle for independence. Al-Qassam's current place in the Islamic movement's grand narrative is indicative of its attempt to appropriate Palestinian history. He has been appropriated not merely as a symbol but also as the visible part of an organized movement, which moreover was "ten years in the making," and with it the whole history of armed struggle in Palestine. This makes the armed struggle an intrinsic part of the history of the Islamic trend itself, serving to endow it with enhanced national legitimacy.
In the period stretching from the end of Ottoman rule to defeat and dispersal in 1948, the confrontation with Zionism and British imperialism did not permit the crystallization of a clearly defined sense of national identity. Various strands coexisted together. Grafted on top of a continuing narrow attachment to kin, faction, village, region, was added Islam and a more widely held consciousness of Arab national qawmi feeling. Palestinian patriotic watani feeling was probably the weakest among all the overlapping senses of identity. The determining factor in the shaping of this identity was not only the historical baggage bequeathed by the long span of Ottoman rule but also the necessity of existing in and having to come to terms with a newly structured entity severed from its natural environment. The perceived aim of the Zionist movement, Jewish hegemony, presented a constant challenge that could only be met by appeal to a vocabulary of identity that, to make itself comprehensible, had to express itself in recognizable cultural categories embedded in a familiar historical narrative. This could only be provided by Islam. Simultaneously, the political class acquired a Pan-Arab outlook that was not diminished as a result of the failure to realize Arab unity. It continued, despite the reality of foreign domination, to look for support to other Arab states, so much so that from the mid-1930s onward, it was the neighboring Arab states who had the deciding say in the affairs of Palestine's Arab inhabitants.
Unlike in neighboring Arab states, the Mandate years in Palestine did not prove to be a transitional stage to independence and nation-building, but culminated in a process of expulsion, dispersal, and dissolution. The dispersal resulted in the assumption of different identities depending, among other things, on the attitude of the host countries. The small minority of those who remained on their lands and villages became 'Arab Isra'il (the Arabs of Israel), and when two decades later they attempted to stress their Palestinian identity, this was viewed as treasonable intent. The largest concentration, in terms of number, congregated in what is currently the West Bank and was made up of the original inhabitants of the region in addition to the refugees expelled from Israeli-controlled territory. This area was to fall under Jordanian control and its inhabitants were accorded full Jordanian citizenship, 30 enabling them to enjoy legal and political equality with native Jordanians, inclusive of the right to passports and the ability to travel and seek employment opportunities abroad. 31
The second largest congregation was in the Gaza Strip, the only part of Mandate Palestine that continued to exist as such and that was administered by the Egyptian army up to 1967. Large numbers of refugees also made their way to Syria and the Lebanon where they were housed in camps and treated as foreign residents. 32 Conditions and developments in these three areas of concentration were by no means similar. Within the Gaza Strip, run by an Egyptian military administration that was extremely repressive, any kind of political activity was regarded as subversive and little distinction was made between various political groups whether nationalist, communist, or Islamic. The most active were the Muslim Brothers, who functioned as an extension of the central office in Cairo and who succeeded in establishing a strong and permanent base for themselves. 33 Jordanian rule in the West Bank was welcomed right from the beginning by a large section of the a'yan class who already during the Mandate years had expressed support for Prince/King 'Abdullah. There was little opposition from the remnants of a shattered national movement, as the advantages that accompanied Jordanian rule and the imposition of Jordanian citizenship were much too attractive to reject.
On the whole the Palestinian diaspora adopted an Arab nationalist stance and was an enthusiastic supporter of Nasser and his policies. Palestinians were active and prominent in all political organizations, the Ba'th, the Arab Nationalists, the Syrian Nationalists (PPS), and the Communists, but the mid-1950s and early 1960s witnessed the dominance of Arab nationalist discourse and they were its most ardent proponents. Bereft of alternatives, they chose to put their faith in Arab unity as the necessary prerequisite for the battle of liberation and return. The only place that the religious trend was allowed institutional expression was in Jordan. After a brief interlude of liberal experimentation in the mid-1950s, the King suppressed all political activity. The only group to be exempted from that ban, which remained in place until the mid-1980s, was the Muslim Brothers movement. 34
It was only in 1964 with the establishment of the PLO that a distinct Palestinian identity was actively fostered and accorded official Arab sanction. This signalled the beginning of a nation-building process that greatly gathered momentum after 1967. 35 It is significant that this took place outside the borders of the state that had the largest numbers of Palestinians living within it, Jordan, and that took active steps to weaken its own citizens' identification with this development. In pursuit of this aim, it made common cause with its natural allies, the Muslim Brotherhood movement, who were pursuing their own feud with Nasser and who regarded the PLO as his creation and Shuqayri, its appointed head, as his creature.
Yet this process was facilitated in many instances by the rejection of the host society of any sort of identification with the Palestinians living in their midst, such as in Lebanon and the Persian Gulf states. Consequently, Palestinian identity was forged in the refugee camps of the Arab world and among the Palestinian communities of the Gulf states, not in what remained of Palestinian territory. It continued to be weakest in Jordan and the West Bank where the process was delayed until the replacement of Jordanian by Israeli rule. The latter, in a move that complemented Jordanian policies, continued to insist on the legal fiction that the inhabitants of the West Bank were Jordanian. The only Palestinian body that the Israeli occupation authorities allowed to operate in the immediate aftermath of June 1967 was the Higher Islamic Council. 36 This was made up of religious dignitaries and ex-Jordanian civil servants, and was to serve for a short time as the focus of anti-occupation activities.
The growth and development of the Islamic movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip cannot be understood outside the framework of the struggle between the PLO and the Jordanian regime for legitimacy and representation. Official Islam remained under the control of the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf, a situation that the Israeli authorities were more than happy to countenance. The leadership of the Islamic movement, particularly in the West Bank (and this provides an explanation for the greater degree of activism and militancy in the Gaza Strip) was part and parcel of the Jordanian religious hierarchy. This was conservative by nature, having been nurtured in the Jordanian Islamic alliance spanning the nineteen-year period of Jordanian rule. It was largely made up of Jordanian civil servants employed in the various offices of the Waqf departments in the West Bank, who continued to draw their salaries from the Jordanian treasury. From 1970-1971, when the armed Palestinian organizations were ejected from Jordan, until the Jordanian-Palestinian rapprochement in the 1980s after the PLO's expulsion from Lebanon, the two parties were in conflict over the hearts and minds of the residents of the Occupied Territories. Although the Arab summit in Rabat in 1974 recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative, and the King gave his public assent to the summit's resolutions, the battle continued to be joined in the Occupied Territories themselves. Throughout this period, the Islamic movement did not place resistance to the occupation high on its order of priorities, and for this reason (in addition to forming part of the pro-Jordanian camp) tended to be tolerated by the Israeli authorities. 37
The transformations that took place were slow and part of a process linked to the growth of a generation of West Bankers who had no experience of Jordanian rule. They were also the outcome of the increased involvement of the PLO constituent groups in the Occupied Territories, especially, after 1982, in an attempt to create a political presence for themselves at the grass-roots level. The crystallization of a secular Palestinian identity was hampered by the fact that the political discourse of the dominant political faction within the PLO, FATAH, which attracted the largest number of Palestinians to its ranks, was markedly Islamic. 38 It was seen, and rightly so, by the more radical Palestinian groups to possess a conservative social and political agenda. Arguably it was this that enabled it to draw support from every sector of the community, 39 and it continued to engage in a popular discourse that was heavily laced with religious imagery and well-entrenched within the framework of an Islamic-oriented value system.
The slogans and rallying cries of the anti-occupation movement have shown an increasing tendency since the 1980s to couch themselves in an Islamic mode. The most important potent symbol and rallying cry of the occupation, Jerusalem, is put forward in religious terms. The depiction of Jews is a reflection of old Islamic attitudes arising out of the conflicts in Arabia between the early community of believers and neighboring Jewish tribes. The practice of holding demonstrations after Friday prayers when people are congregating at mosques, the use of mosques as social support networks, their use as relatively safe havens and to carry out teaching when schools are closed and later as centers for the distribution of food and money, all tended to reinforce the view that political commitment is an extension of religious belief and that a central component of civil society is the religious identity of its most active participants. Indeed, the aim was to appeal to the more traditional among the Occupied Territories' inhabitants, and it has been argued that the highly ambiguous nature of Islamic idioms, which are open to all sorts of possible interpretations, has enabled FATAH to broaden its base of support.
Despite the removal of visible physical barriers between Palestinian and Israeli society in the pre-Intifada period, the secular nature of Israeli society has had very little impact on Palestinian life. 40 The two societies have remained essentially separate and have very little to do with each other outside the sphere of the sale and purchase of labor power (there is of course a confrontational relationship acted out daily and in multitudinous forms between occupied and occupier). Thus the secular experience has not been part of the life cycle of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians because their lives have not been acted out in Israel but in the seclusion of their dormitory-type villages and camps. It is also important here to keep in mind the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who, having become enabled as a result of acquiring marketable skills, made their way to the labor-hungry societies of the Gulf where a generation has spent its life in traditional societies that continue to pay lip service and maintain the outward appearances of attachment to Islam.
For these very reasons, the actual tensions that coexist in Palestinian identity have to be seen as the outcome of the course of Palestinian history since the conquest of the territory by Britain and the consequent unfolding of events. They have to be explained in terms different from the absence of legitimacy or otherwise and the failures that characterize the policies of secular and traditional elites elsewhere in the region.
The absence of ideology on the part of FATAH, which has been the dominant political force in Palestinian politics since 1968, and its resort to religious symbols and ideology to mobilize and enlist support, cast doubt on the often repeated assertion that FATAH, and by implication the Palestinian movement, is a secular force. Islam was and continues to be one of the paramount elements of Palestinian national identity, more so among Palestinians inside the Occupied Territories. This in itself serves to explain the ease with which support for a seemingly secular PLO was transformed into sympathy, and in many cases even allegiance, to the Islamic movement. If we are to dis count a sudden outbreak of religiosity as the cause of this phenomenon, it becomes necessary to look elsewhere to try and explain the shift of support from the traditional forces of the PLO to those new and radical forces, which, it must constantly be remembered, are active and have their origin in the Occupied Territories themselves.
The years following the expulsion of the PLO from Beirut in 1982 saw a gradual decline in the standing of the PLO despite the increased level of action and involvement of its constituent groups in the Occupied Territories. While continuing to express commitment to the strategy of armed struggle, actual practice increasingly revolved around political action and institution-building. This sought to make use of the relatively large space made possible by tolerance for protest and civil rights activities, which the Israeli authorities believed would somehow contribute to a state of normalization. To all intents and purposes the PLO was well on its way to being transformed into a vehicle whose primary task was the pursuit of diplomatic activity.
Simultaneous with the unfolding of this process, the Islamic movement was undergoing its own transformation. A younger generation of members and sympathizers of the Muslim Brothers movement were questioning the organization's passivity and lack of involvement in the ongoing anti-occupation struggle. There were new role models. The electronic media had brought the news of a worldwide Islamic revival into the refugee camps of Gaza and the villages of the West Bank. They were fully cognisant of the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, of the exploits of the Islamic Resistance in Southern Lebanon, of the victories of the mujahidin in Afghanistan, of the militancy of the various Islamic groups in Egypt engaged in violent conflict with the Sadat regime and its successor, and of the brutal suppression of the Islamic movement in Syria. All this stood in sharp contrast to the quietism and inner withdrawal preached by the traditional leadership of the movement. This resulted in a politically inspired split that led to the birth of the Islamic Jihad movement. Its establishment was the signal for the beginning of a new campaign of violent attacks on Israeli civilians, settlers, and army personnel. Thus no sooner had the PLO abandoned the banner of armed struggle than it was raised again by the Islamic forces.
The period leading up to the outbreak of the Intifada in December 1987 saw the political fortunes of the PLO at their lowest ebb. The Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel had divided the Arab states. While the war unleashed by Iraq against Iran, with the former's loud protestations of defending the Arab world against the Farsi threat, seemed to provide a suitable diversion enabling a weary Arab political order to place the Palestine issue on a back burner.
The view from within the Occupied Territories was despondent. The PLO was becoming irrelevant as a regional player, marginalized and increasingly unable to influence the diplomatic game. The abandonment of the armed struggle, which represented the essence of its appeal to large numbers of young people looking for means to express their anger and rejection of the occupation, meant that little was now demanded of them except to perform the role of spectators. They were superfluous to the process of institution-building. Yet this period saw an intensification in the number of violent attacks directed against Israelis, mostly carried out by members or sympathizers of the Islamic Jihad. Many of these operations were spectacular, characterized by acts of daring and courage and serving to restore confidence in a period of declining prospects. They undoubtedly served to endow the Islamic movement as a whole with a credibility it had hitherto lacked. It appeared as if a new avenue was opening up. There now existed a framework that welcomed those desirous of engaging in violent confrontation with the enemy. The banners under which these actions were undertaken were Islamic, but the nature of the activities was the same as those carried out by nationalist groups in a not so distant past.
In the event, Israeli repression was more or less successful in containing the activities of the Islamic Jihad. Its members were arrested, killed, or deported and there was a marked decrease in its level of activity. This however could not check the spread of its example. The propaganda of the deed proved a success. 41 But the Islamic Jihad was primarily a conspiracy. It carried out no political activity and concentrated solely on violent actions. Thus it could not acquire a mass base. Its political success was in the pressure it exerted on the mainstream Islamic movement, the Muslim Brothers, to abandon their passiveness and involve themselves in the nationalist struggle for self-determination and statehood.
It is not necessary to grant any credence to the claims made by the Islamic movement of having organized and planned the outbreak of the Intifada to recognize the significance of this event in providing the framework for the participation of the Islamicists in the anti-occupation struggle and in promoting their fortunes. The movement did not have to undergo an ideological transformation in order to participate in the mass upheaval taking place. This did not initially appear to amount to more than another phase in the cycle of resistance and repression that had come to characterize the workings of the occupation. The Muslim Brothers were already under pressure to assume an activist stance even prior to December 1987 as a result of the widely publicized activities of the Islamic Jihad. The outbreak of the Intifada merely intensified the pressure from among the ranks of their own supporters and from society
at large. This was accommodated by the adoption of a public stance, through out the Occupied Territories, calling for active resistance to the occupation. Leaflets were published and circulated right at the start of the outbreak of strikes and confrontations, calling for an intensification of anti-occupation activities. The name under which they chose to advertise their entry, the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), represented a notable departure from past historical practice. The same can be said of the contents of the movement's program, 42 al-Mithaq, which has been recognized as expressing a "most innovative and unorthodox theoretical move." 43 The main innovation is in the emphasis on the concept of homeland and the support extended to the idea of the nation-state. The historical narrative the document maps out is totally Palestinian, stressing the role of al-Qassam as the most significant moment in the Islamic movement's long struggle to liberate Palestine, while making clear its understanding that patriotism is an intrinsic part of religious belief. 44 The attitude to Israel manifests itself primarily in ahistorical and religious terms. The Jews were the enemies of the Prophet right from the very beginning and have incurred the wrath of God by straying from his revealed message. 45 Fighting them is a divinely ordained task. Thus there is an added religious endorsement for the nationalist imperative of striving for independent statehood in Palestine.
The independence exhibited by HAMAS in refusing to join the Unified National Leadership as yet another grouping under the umbrella of an overarching PLO served to enhance its status. The movement persisted adamantly to project itself as a potential alternative to the PLO and thus a legitimate spokesperson for all Palestinians. Its active participation in the Intifada served to strengthen its nationalist credentials, and its resort to armed actions at a time when the mainstream PLO leadership was seen to be increasingly involved in diplomatic maneuverings struck a receptive chord among a public that was growing frustrated and despondent as a result of the failure of the Intifada to yield any positive results.
The recovery of the Islamic movement has been remarkable. In the space of a few years, and as a result of involvement in the Intifada, it has been able to compensate for its long absence from the political arena. The regaining of legitimacy can only be explained in terms of loss of faith in the ability, perhaps even the willingness, of the PLO to pursue the dream of independent statehood. This is what HAMAS now has on offer. It is not preoccupied with theological disputations and other sacred concerns.
In a previous era the failure of Arab states to establish unity and to mobilize their resources to face Israel led to the dissipation of Arab nationalist illusions and the rise of a specific Palestinian nationalism. The current disillusionment with a peace process which does not satisfy even the minimalist aspirations outlined in the program for independent statehood in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has catapulted HAMAS into becoming the mouth piece of Palestinian opposition to the current settlement, overshadowing organizations such as the Popular and Democratic Fronts that have a much longer track record. Its hard-line position, enshrined in the legend now abandoned by the PLO--liberation from the river to the sea, min al-nahr ila al-bahr--has gained it the support of people who are not necessarily observant, yet who feel betrayed by the unfolding political process and see it as "a forum offering them some hope which they badly need in order to keep their psyche intact."
Over the last ninety years the inhabitants of Palestine have undergone numerous transformations as a result of domination by a succession of various foreign rulers. The changes have mainly affected their public identity. They started out as Ottomans; currently they are Palestinians. Throughout there were two fixed components to their make-up, the Arab and the Islamic. Some would argue that it is possible to have two or three identities side by side, or even superimposed on each other. It is my contention that the absence of statehood, and thus the nation-building project, has thwarted the growth of a specifically territorial Palestinian identity similar to what arguably exists in neighboring Iraq or Syria and that accounts for the existence of a narrowly based Syrian or Iraqi nationalism. The demise of the Ottoman Empire, followed by a period of British rule and the subsequent collapse of all the structures of Palestinian society, social, economic and political, drove the Palestinians to assert the primacy and centrality of their Arabness. The Arab states, however, remained preoccupied within their own narrow territorialism. In Palestinian eyes this translated into the negative attributes of disunity and abandonment and drove them in turn to emphasize their own particularism and separateness. They have not been able, however, to implement their own territorial nationalist program. This has led to disillusionment with the leadership believed to be responsible for this failure. A large section from among those strata that have traditionally provided the reservoir for the active militants and street fighters that made up the cadres of FATAH as the largest constituent group within the PLO have now turned to the Islamic movement. This did not require any change in their perception of what and who they are. They have not and are not undergoing an identity problem and there has been no accompanying existential upheaval. The explanation lies in the nature of the Islamic movement itself. It has always preoccupied itself with the political sphere. Right from the start it endowed the nationalist struggle with its language and imagery, making it possible for people who were neither religious nor devout to enter its ranks and shelter under its banner while contin uing to pursue an agenda firmly rooted in the nationalist struggles of a postreligious age.
Notes:
Note 1: Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View From The Edge (New York, 1994), 7. Back.
Note 2: I. Abrash, "Hawla Hudud Istihdar al-Muqaddas fi al-'Umur al-Dunyawiyya: Mulahazat Manhajiyya," al-Mustaqbal al-'Arabi 180 (February 1994): 17. Back.
Note 3: Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, 1994), 52. Back.
Note 4: Roy characterizes the FIS as an Algerian nationalist movement and considers it appropriate to speak of "Islamo-nationalism." See ibid., 130. Back.
Arab states, however, remained preoccupied within the
Note 5: Bulliet, Islam, 7. Back.
Note 6: F. Huwaidi, contribution to the debate in A. 'Abd al-Sami', al-Mutatarrifun: Nadwat wa Dawa'ih Hiwar (Cairo, 1993), 133. Back.
Note 7: Huwaidi in ibid., 148. Back.
Note 8: J. Mattar in ibid., 87. Back.
Note 9: M. 'Amara, in ibid., 71. See special issue of al-Mustaqbal al-'Arabi, no. 189 (November 1994). Back.
Note 10: S. Ibrahim in 'Abd al-Sami', al-Mutatarrifun, 142, 184. Back.
Note 11: Roy, Failure, 50. The author suggests that Islamicists come from within the modernist sectors of society, and that Islamicism is not a reaction to modernization but a product of it. Back.
Note 12: A. 'Azma, "Fakk al-Irtibat bayna al-'Uruba wa al-Islam," al-Naqid 33 (March 1991): 20. Back.
Note 13: C. Ernest Dawn, "The Origins of Arab Nationalism," in Khalidi et al., Origins, 16. Back.
Note 14: Tahseen Basheer. See contribution to the debate in 'Abd al-Sami', al-Mutatarrifun, 150. Back.
Note 15: Johnson, Islam, 99. Back.
Note 16: See Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, 138. Back.
Note 17: Muhammad Muslih, "The Rise of Local Nationalism In The Arab East," in Khalidi et al., Origins, 180. Back.
Note 18: As late as April 1920 participants at the Nabi Musa gathering carried banners with the legend "Filastin Juz' min Surriya" (Palestine is part of Syria). See picture of demonstration with banner clearly visible in A. al-Kayyali, Tar'ikh Filastin al-Hadith (Beirut, 1970), 162. The first Arabic newspaper established after the British Occupation was called Suriyya al-Junubiyya (September 1919). Back.
Note 19: M. M. Salih, al-Tayyar al-Islami fi Filastin wa Atharuhu fi Haraka al-Jihad, 1917-1948 (Kuwait, 1988), 103. Back.
Note 20: Johnson, Islam, 23-24. Back.
Note 22: Neither of the two exhibited a marked degree of religious piety or doctrinal expertise. On the evidence of their careers both could be fairly characterized as secular Muslims. Back.
Note 23: For an account written prior to the spread of al-Qassam fever see S. Yasin, Harb al-'Isabat fi Filastin (Cairo, 1967), 60-70. The author, himself a participant in the armed struggle in the 1930s, dedicates the book to the memory of al-Qassam, "mu'assas awwal jam'iyya thawriyya fida'iyya fi Filastin." Back.
Note 24: Soon after its establishment in February 1969, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine brought out a large poster of al-Qassam, while one of its armed formations was actually named Quwwat al-Qassam. Initially, he was appropriated by the left who portrayed him as an early organizer of an incipient Palestinian working class, and perhaps a forerunner of another notable exile, Che Guevara. Back.
Note 25: The first comprehensive treatment of al-Qassam was in Porath, 1929-1939. He was the first to propagate the myth of an organized movement, al-Qassamiyun. R. Peters, Islam and Colonialism, The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague, 1979), 97-103, provides the first scholarly attempt to situate al-Qassam within an Islamic framework. Back.
Note 26: S. Hammuda, Shaykh 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam: al-Wa'i wa al-Thawra (Jerusalem, 1986). The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus held a two-day conference in Habla, al-Qassam's birthplace, in December 1992 to commemorate his memory. See al-Shahid 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam: Hayatuhu wa Jihaduhu (Damascus, n.d.). Back.
Note 27: Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Malamih al-Tattawur al-Filastini: Dirasat Filastiniyya (n.p., n.d., probably end of 1969), 9-11. Leila Khalid of hijacking fame describes him as having organized the first workers and peasants revolution in the Arab homeland. See L. Khalid, Sha'bi Sayahya: Mudhakkirat Khatifat al-Ta'irat (Beirut, 1973), 22. Back.
Note 28: See S. Lachman, "Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine, 1929-39: The Case of Shaykh Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam and his Movement," in Elie Kedourie and Sylvia G. Haim (eds.), Zionism and Arabism in Palestine and Israel (London, 1982); "Qassamite terror was particularly bloodthirsty . . . it became one of the most anarchical and destructive forces ever to arise in the Palestinian Arab community" (86-87). Back.
Note 29: Ghassan Kanafani, a leading spokesperson of the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine, writes that we must understand al-Qassam's actions in a Guevarist way, as it is certain that he was conscious of the importance of his role as the initiator of an advanced revolutionary foci. See G. Kanafani, "Thawrat 1936-39 fi Filastin: Khalfiyyat wa Tafasil wa Tahlil," Shu'un Filastiniyya 6 (January 1972): 62. Back.
Note 30: I. Sakhnini, "Damm Filastin al-Wusta ila Sharq al-Urdun, 1948-1950," Shu'un Filastiniyya 40 (December 1974). The Jordanian parliament passed a decree to this effect on 13 December 1948. Back.
Note 31: See M. Budeiri, "Tar'ikh Filastin al-Ijtima'i al-Hadith," in L. Turki (ed.), al-Mujtama' al-Filastini fi al-Daffa al-Gharbiya wa Qita' Ghaza (Acre, 1990), 49. Back.
Note 32: For the Palestinians in Lebanon see S. M. A. Ayyub, al-Bina' al-Tabaqi lil-Filastiniyyin fi Lubnan (Beirut, 1978), 220-228. Back.
Note 33: See H. Abu al-Naml, Qita' Ghaza 1948-1967: Tatawwurat Iqtisadiyya wa Siyasiyya wa Ijtima'iyya wa 'Askariyya (Beirut, 1979), 66. According to the author, the Muslim Brothers were the strongest force in the strip until 1955, while in the post-1957 period Harakat al-Qawmiyyin al-'Arab became stronger (187). Back.
Note 34: Amnon Cohen, Political Parties in the West Bank Under the Jordanian Regime, 1949-1967 (Ithaca, 1982), 146. Back.
Note 35: All sorts of groups surfaced and submerged in the post 1948 period. One such was FATAH, which originated in 1956(?) and was identified publicly in 1959 with the publication of the Beirut journal Filastinuna ("Our Palestine"). It is doubtful whether its particular brand of Palestinian particularism would have gained much popular support. In the event, the defeat of June 1967 and the demise of Nasser and the Arab nationalist project he symbolized catapulted it to the forefront. Back.
Note 36: See Shaykh 'Abd al-Hamid al-Sayih, Muzaqarat: Filastin, La Salatta Tahta al-Hirab (Beirut, 1994), 82-83. Back.
Note 37: Some observers believe that it was actively promoted in order to combat the influence of the radical nationalist organizations. HAMAS itself was banned two years after the outbreak of the Intifada, in May 1989. Back.
Note 38: Commenting on an earlier draft, S. Tamari makes the valid criticism that this characterization "collapses all Palestinian nationalism of the pre-Intifada period into the realm of mainstream FATAH politics." I would argue that (a) secular groups within the PLO constantly shied away from any confrontation on the terrain of religion, and (b) that despite their high degree of visibility, the constituency of the left groups was startlingly miniscule, as has been shown to be the case in the post-Oslo era. Back.
Note 39: On University campuses in the 1970s and 1980s, it was difficult to distinguish between students associated with FATAH and those associated with religious groups; the latter usually cast their vote for FATAH candidates in student elections. Back.
Note 40: A. NŸsse argues that the increased strength of Islamic movements is a reaction against the evils of modern society, and that modernity is identified with state of Israel. There is no evidence to substantiate this rather carefree assertion. See NŸsse, "The Ideology of Hamas: Palestinian Islamic Fundamentalist Thought on the Jews, Israel, and Islam," in R. Nettler (ed.), Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations (Oxford, 1993), 112. Back.
Note 41: Most of the attacks on Israeli civilians in the period prior to the Intifada, and during the Intifada itself, were probably the work of individuals who were not necessarily members of organized groups and who carried out their activities as a result of the climate of opinion created by the Islamic Jihad. Back.
Note 42: The Charter, "al-Mithaq," was published in November 1988. It is not a programmatic document and does not go much beyond generalities. It has been criticized, not least by observers sympathetic to the movement for being too vague. See A. Rashad, Hamas: Palestinian Politics with an Islamic Hue (Springfield, VA, 1993), 16. Back.
Note 43: Nüsse, "Hamas," 108. Back.
Note 44: See Articles Six, Seven and Twelve of the Charter. Back.
Note 45: Z. Abu Ghuaima, al-Haraka al-Islamiyya wa Qadiyyat Filastin (Amman, 1985). The author provides two pages of Qur'anic verses as evidence of the hostility of the Jews to Arabs and Muslims (11-14). Back.
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