Hamas developing—reactive progress

How and in what ways did the aforementioned developments affect Hamas’s continued transmutation from movement to party and its process of institutionalization? Or more specifically, what were the main consequences of the outbreak of the second intifada, the suspension of the peace process, and the changes and institutionalization of the Palestinian political system for Hamas’s strategic deliberations and organizational (structural) and ideological (attitudinal) developments?

Even if the second intifada was the most violent and destructive period in recent Palestinian history,³⁵⁸ the political developments throughout these years could be construed as positive from the standpoint of Hamas. Whereas the Oslo years had been one long challenge for the movement, with the overall political opportunity structures being to the disadvantage for Hamas, the developments throughout the years of the second intifada permitted the movement to evolve organizationally, ideologically, and strategically.

For one, the outbreak of the intifada saw the return of violent resistance as a major source of legitimacy and popularity in Palestinian politics, allowing Hamas to again take center stage on the Palestinian political scene as a major liberation movement. While this return to violence can be seen as a step back with regard to Hamas’s transmutation from movement to party, it was arguably an important reason for Hamas’s increasing popularity and the influx of new recruits, both of which worked to elevate Hamas’s confidence as a political actor. Second, the Oslo process was all but declared dead by late 2000. This “death of Oslo” was also important for Hamas’s popularity and confidence; Hamas had in effect tied its identity to its condemnation of the peace process and could now capitalize politically by having been 358 See Baroud (2006) for a general account of the second intifada, and Ajluni (2003) for a report on its economic consequences for the Palestinians. For statistics on casualties, consult the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR 2011), the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem 2012), and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)—occupied Palestinian territory (OCHA 2007).

proved right in its predictions that the Oslo Accords were flawed and doomed to fail. And third, following first the ratification of the interim Basic Law of the PA and then the demise of Arafat, the Palestinian political system finally began to institutionalize. Crucially, the institutionalization process of the PA included the introduction of proper power-sharing mechanisms, which hitherto had been conspicuously absent from this state-like construct.

This, in turn, was important for the integration of Hamas into the political system, as it was one decisive factor inspiring the movement to contest the 2006 elections for the legislative council of the PA (the PLC).

In brief, the period saw Hamas develop from the somewhat conflicted liberation movement of the late 1990s, caught between contradictory or at least ambiguous strategic aims, to a much more confident and mature political movement capable and willing to take part in institutionalized politics. In sum, Hamas took important steps in its transmutation from movement toward party in the years of the second intifada. The following sections will first outline how Hamas responded ideologically to these developments, before tracing and analyzing its organizational development in the same period.

6.2.1 The eventual adoption of a pragmatic ideology

As discussed in the previous chapter, certain elements of Hamas’s domestic leadership had tried throughout the latter part of the 1990s to moderate the movement’s message to make it conform more closely with the political realities on the ground. One crucial aspect of this moderating effort was the suggestion that Hamas could agree to an interim solution with Israel based on the 1967 borders. But as was concluded, these moderates in the Hamas leadership did not have enough organizational clout to succeed in their effort. Powerful factions and persons within Hamas were still set on keeping with the maximalist and subversive ideology as spelled out in the 1988 Charter.

Only months before the outbreak of the second intifada, the Political Bureau of Hamas published a memo detailing the movement’s history and goals. An authoritative document, it is a good indicator of the ideological and strategic thinking within Hamas at the time. And in it, Hamas reiterates that “military action … constitutes the strategic means for the liberation of Palestine,” and that its goal is “the total liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river”

(Tamimi 2007, 278–79). In short, Hamas officially preferred violence to other strategies, and remained convinced that such a strategy was the best way to eventually achieve total

liberation.³⁵⁹

The unsuccessful attempt to moderate Hamas’s positions on key issues is taken as an indication that Hamas had not completed its transmutation from movement to party by the beginning of the second intifada. In essence, the power of the hard-liners meant that Hamas remained a movement in that it still represented an exclusive segment of Palestinians committed to the pursuit of its originally stated, absolutist, and subversive goals. As theorized, to qualify as a political party Hamas would have to adopt a more centrist message and articulate and take a position on most if not all policy issues which mobilize voters in occupied Palestine (de Zeeuw 2008b, 15).

On the face of it, the political opportunity structures during the second intifada seemed to favor the hard-liners in Hamas; violent resistance was again the preferred strategy of most Palestinian liberation movements, and the somewhat accommodating line characteristic of the Oslo years had all but been replaced by absolutist positions by the involved parties. Despite such developments, the years of the second intifada saw Hamas adopt a more centrist political message, in essence replacing the radical position from its years as a militant movement with the pragmatism of a political party.³⁶⁰

Theoretically, then, the ideological moderation Hamas underwent in this period was somewhat paradoxical. Most theories purporting to explain the moderation of radical parties rests on various iterations of the inclusion-moderation thesis. Briefly and somewhat crudely put, this thesis states that the inclusion of radical parties into the political system eventually will lead to their moderation because the operational logic of being within the system is qualitatively different from staying outside the system. Also according to this thesis, repression will most often lead to further radicalization (Schwedler 2011).³⁶¹

Under certain conditions, however, the repression of radicals can also lead to moderation (Turam 2007).³⁶² At the most basic level, if the repression is of such a severity that it threatens the survival of the organization, it can lead to ideological moderation. Furthermore, if the 359 Importantly, the leader of Hamas’s Political Bureau, Khaled Meshaal, was a steady and strong proponent of violence and suicide bombings as the preferred strategy of Hamas—even when such operations went out of vogue among Palestinians (McGeough 2010, 404).

360 See, in particular, the section The (re)articulation of ends pp. 204ff. for details.

361 See, for example, Scwedler (2007a, 2007b, 2011), Przeworski and Sprague (1986), Wickham (2004), Brocker and Künkler (2013), and Tezcur (2010) for various analyses and reviews of this inclusion-moderation thesis.

362 In her analysis of the moderation of Islamist parties in Turkey, Turam argues that it was state repression that forced the various incarnations of the Islamists to incrementally moderate (2007).

political organization in question aims to retain or increase its popularity and legitimacy, it must be responsive to changes in popular opinion. And as will become clear in the following analyses of the ideological and organizational development of Hamas, both of these conditions were present throughout the second intifada.

In brief, the persecution of Hamas during the second intifada was at times of such a scale and intensity that it indeed threatened the very existence of the organization. This indirectly led to increased ideological coherence within Hamas, as the various branches of its leadership realized that they had to agree on crucial issues to survive as one organization. Combined with the ambition in Hamas to not only retain its popularity and legitimacy, but eventually take what it saw as its rightful place at the center of the Palestinian political scene, the leadership in Hamas opted to leave behind its most unrealistic goals to the benefit of a more pragmatic ideological message.

Continued ambiguity

However, the back-and-forth between the hard-liners and moderates within Hamas continued for some time into the 2000s, in part because the power balance between the different factions oscillated in tandem with political developments in the occupied territories and the wider Middle East region. Whereas the last years of the 1990s saw both the release of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from Israeli prison and the expulsion of the Political Bureau from Amman, both of which empowered the domestic leadership at the expense of the external one, the outbreak of the second intifada threatened to reverse this.

Primarily this reversal in the power balance was due to the reintroduction of violent resistance as the preferred and most popular strategy for Palestinian resistance movements. The operational logic of the second intifada meant that it was through violent resistance that Hamas had reclaimed its role as a major political player. And the military strategy in vogue for much of the second intifada years had for long been advocated by those within Hamas subscribing to its initial maximalist aims. As such, the resumption of violent resistance meant that it was the militant wing, led by the exiled Political Bureau, that again made up the dominant faction in Hamas. Because of this, the power balance between those working toward more moderate aims and alternative strategies, and those married to the idea of complete liberation of historic Palestine by violent means, tilted in favor of the latter, in effect threatening the moderating efforts undertaken by Sheikh Yassin and his allies from the mid-1990s.