Introduction – Hamas and the Premises of the Islamization of the Gaza Strip
Hamas is the name the Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat al-Muqawana al-Islamiya) is known under. It is a fundamentalist Islamic organization that defines itself as "the military wing of the Muslim Brethren" (Webman, p. 17).
They won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 with 76 seats out of the total of 132 seats, 43 seats being occupied by Fatah.Considered by many people as a proof that the population was rejecting the corruption and inefficiency of the Fatah government, this victory was believed to represent the end of the four decades of the Palestine Liberation Organization supremacy.
In February 2006, a proposal for a 10-year truce was made by Hamas to Israel, "in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories: the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem" (BBC, 2009), and for the recognition of several Palestinian rights, the "right of return" being the most important.
After the elections, Middle East Quartet formed by the United States, the European Union (EU), Russia and the United Nations announced that they would only continue to provide assistance on the condition that Hamas cease violence, recognize Israel, and accept the previously signed Israeli-Palestinian agreements. When Hamas refused, the Quartet ceased international aids in the region (BBC).
The Electoral Platform for Change and Reform thanks to which Hamas won the elections included a set of principles said to be based on the Islamic tradition and to be agreed upon by Palestinians, Arabs and Islamists alltogether. These principles were:
- Adopting true Islam and its economical, political, social, and legal base as a referance frame and way of life.
- Confirming the inclusion of historic Palestine in the Arab and, implicitly, Islamic land and reaffirming the Palestinians' right of ownership over it.
- Supporting the independence of Palestine and the forming of a Palestinian state having Jerusalem as capital by all means (even armed struggle).
- The inalienable and unbarganable character of the right of the Palestinian refugees and of the other displaced persons from the region to return and regain possession of their lands and assets, of the right to self-determination and of all the other national rights.
- Protecting the rights of Palestinians to their land, their holy places, their water resources, their borders, and an independent state having Jerusalem as the capital.
- Consolidating and protecting national unity.
- Solving the issue of the Palestinian prisoners. (Jensen)
Hamas' legislative policy and judiciary reform plans included: reinforcing the separation between the legislative, the executive and the judicial powers; activating the Constitutional Court; re-forming the Judicial Supreme Council, choosing its members through elections and based on qualifications instead of partisan, personal or social considerations; enacting laws to guarantee the general prosecutor's neutrality and stop executive power's transgressions on the constitution" (Jensen).
The platform, referring to citizen rights and freedoms, aimed to: achieve the citizens' equality in front of the law in terms of duties and rights; ensure the security of all citizens, protecting their assets and preventing arbitrary arrest, revenge or torture; promote dialogue; support the media and protect the journalists's right to access and reveal information; ensure the professional syndicates' freedom and independence and protect the rights of their members (Jensen).
The efforts to impose the Islamic principles and traditions to Gaza citizens, although dating as far back as the 1980's, became successful only after Hamas took control of the area as the result of the 2006 elections. After the end of the civil war, Hamas proclaimed the end of heresy and secularism in Gaza, and, with it, the rule of the first Muslim Brotherhood on a considerable territory, after the 1989 Sudanese coup that gave power to Omar al-Bashir, began. Despite the above described electoral platform, Hamas were accused of restricting the freedoms and rights of the Gaza citizens in the process (Jensen).
Political Islamization
One of the consequences of the Hamas coup in 2007 was the increased Islamization of the Gaza Strip. The activity of the numerous extremist Islamist organizations in the region received no response from the government that, quite often, took measures of its own in order to promote and even impose the Islamic lifestyle and teachings upon the population. Their actions were the obvious manifestation of their desire to impose a new way of life, a religious one, in Gaza.
Aware that their ability to make this happen was limmited and likely to receive opposition, not only from the Palestinian society, but also from the international community, they introduced the Islamization measures step by step and pulled back whenever their attemts generated severe negative public reactions. Most Islamization measures were implemented between 2007 and 2009, but some activity in this sense was reported until the first part of 2011.
In 2007, the Executive Force of Hamas announced that they had established a prosecution committee based on shari'a and meant to replace the Public Prosecution in Gaza. The former Palestinian National Authority minister Hassan Asfour's reaction was to say that Hamas's efforts to establish an Islamic emirate on the Gaza Strip represented a take over of the municipalities and an announcement of instating an Islamic shari'a prosecution meant to replace the Gaza judicial system in force. According to him, the emirate administration used its executive power in order to establish a judiciary, an action with no precedent around the world (Jacob).
In 2008, the parliament approved a bill that foresaw the adoption of an Islamic penal code based on punishments like chopping off hands, flogging and hanging. Hamas also took measures to Islamize the Palestinian National Authority's penal code. Ahmad Bahr of Hamas, deputy-speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, announced that the council had ammended several law articles that contravened Islamic law, the example given referring to drugs legislation. According to him, the Legislative Council was working to implement Islamic shari'a, gradually (Jacob).
The Islamization program adopted by Hamas also played the role of a manifest in the Islamic institutions'establishment. An Islamic bank was opened in 2009 and the Ministry of Religious Endowments (Hamas member) announced, in July 2010, the construction of a downtown Gaza City hospital.
Cultural Islamization
Hamas' islamization efforts were deeply felt at a cultural level as well, records mentioning the detonation of small bombs at the premises of tens of music shops, Internet cafes and pool halls in Gaza, aggressions against local singers and concert organization obstructions, some claimed by apparently independent extremist organizations and other justified by Hamas through various subterfuges.
Book banning was another islamization measure popular in Gaza, the most popular being "Speak, Bird, Speak Again", a collection of 45 folk tales declared to include lewd content in 2007. As a result, Zakariya Mohammed, popular Palestinian novelist urged contemporaries to react, warning: "If we don't stand up to the Islamists now, they won't stop confiscating books, songs and folklore" (Jacob).
In 2008, the telecommunications company Paltel was instructed by Hamas to block the Gaza users' access to internet pornographic materials, as a measure to protect morality.
Summer camps did not escape the islamization process either, the camps organized by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza being considered to teach, through their fitness and dancing classes, imorality. Their facilities were devastated by armed men, and, while an autoproclaimed independent formation threatened the agency and Hamas officially condemned the attack, the assailants were never caught.
In 2010, Hamas efforts to impose the strict Islamic teachings on the people of the Gaza Strip led to the closing of a popular entertainment site, the Crazy Water Park, because it allowed mixed bathing. Other entertainment centers that allowed social mingling were closed as well.
Social Islamization
Hamas promoted the ideas that women should wear the hijab, stay at home and segregate from men, at the same time encouraging encouraging polygamy. The women who did not obbey were often harrassed, verbally and physically, to prove that the purpose of the campaign was "to avoid problems on the streets".
The government then focused their efforts on schools, public institutions and even courts, imposing that the women activating there wear the hijab. When Abdel Raouf Al-Halabi (Palestinian Supreme Court Justice) ordered that women lawyers wear caftans and headscarves in court, the latters protested with the help of various satellite television stations, obtaining a cancellation of the directive by the Justice Ministry.
In 2009, girls were prohibited to ride motor scooters behind men or dance. For a short while, women were also banned from smoking in public, in 2010 the banning bein limited to hookah (narghile), considered to be responsible for the continuously raising divorce rate.
In the same year and in the following, attempts were made to prevent women from receiving salon treatments from male professionals, and, while no legislative measures were implemented, During Hamas's reign over the strip, several beauty parlors and hair salons being the target of explosions and other attacks blamed by Hamas on opposition groups. Male hairdressers for women in the conservative territory are rare.
A marathon that should have taken place in 2013, organized by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was canceled after women were prohibited to participate in the race by Hamas (Jacob).
One of the communities that resented the effects of the islamization process at a higher intensity was that of the Christians, reported to reach about 3,000 members in 2007, out of a population of approximately 1.5 million inhabitants, and only 1,400 in 2011. While attacks on minorities were rare, Christians often reported being required by Hamas officials to hide the symbols of their religious apartenance.
Various organizations issued threatening statements addressed to the Christian population in the region, implying that they would have to embrace Islamist teachings if they want to leave in peace and safety. Also, several complaints were made regarding the forced conversion of Christians to Islam. While the Hamas officials condemned such actions, no one was ever held accountable.
In the meantime, Hamas was promoting cultural activities with a religious character. Only one month after taking over Gaza, the Hamas Interior Ministry saw to the forming of a religious choir that sung Islamic songs in the evenings to officers within the Executive Force and to Hamas prisoners. The songs were said to be chosen according to their ability to inspire and strengthen the determination of the youth and faith in Allah and the Islamic teachings.
Repeated attempts of encouraging religions studies and Koran involved offering incentives to criminals. The Gaza Central Prison administration announced the deduction of one year from the sentence of prisoner who would memorize at least five Koran passages. Rumours have it that Gaza traffic officers often offered to annul traffic tickets for offenders who promised they would beg 1,000 times for Allah's forgiveness (Jacob).
Conclusion
As shown above, the extreme islamization process followed several directions at the same time and had devastating effects on the population. While, for some, the fact that it was not directly and totally assumed by the Hamas officials was a sign of hope, for others, it was the detail that ruined their lives.
Without adequate law enforced, the islamization goals were (still are) pursued in the shadow, with the help of criminal organizations that, although condemned for their actions by the government, never answered. People were aggressed, tortured and humiliated in public, their lives were ruined and their lifetime possessions dissipated. They were denied the right to socialize with representatives of the opposite sex, they were denied the right to listen to their favorite music, read their favorite books or access certain websites.
While all these were said to be measures necessary to ensure their own safety, they saw every glimpse of hope they had for a secure and peaceful life threatened, officially and unofficially. Citizens of the same state were turned one against the other, families were torn apart and information was distorted. The physical war had passed, but the psychollogical one was just beginning.
If international aid used to provide some comfort to those in need, too weak and insufficient to induce stability, Hamas saw to its interruption by ignoring the warnings of the Quartet and pursuing its own interests in the region. While they claimed to desire peace with Israel, they continued to provoke and indirectly attack the latter, leading to a general state of insecurity and fear of imminent war.
Will the war start? Will Hamas complete their Islamization project? Rumour has it that the organization is losing power, and it is no doubt that the oppressed population is like a smoking volcano: you cannot know for sure when the eruption will take place, but its occurrence is only a matter of time. We will just have to wait and see!
