Hamas has always been seen (and seen itself) as a primarily nationalistic entity oriented toward seizing power in all the territory currently under Arab control as a preliminary to the destruction of Israel. The violent takeover of the Gaza Strip was merely stage one in the process.
It was not long after the Hamas triumph in Gaza that the organization came under increasing pressure from the more totalistic Islamists in their midst. Over the past eighteen months the challenge from the "left," that is the Salifist rooted, al-Qaeda leaning Islamist jihadists, has grown more rapidly than even the extensive instruments of repression at Hamas' disposal could counter.
Belatedly Hamas attempted to get ahead of the Islamist jihadist curve by moving to impose a more austere Shariah predicated view on the population of Gaza. The first sign of this co-option was the requirement for "modest" dress at the beaches of Gaza. This put-the-women-back-in-garbage-sacks effort was quickly followed by other gambits ranging from the banning of mixed gender social events to the closing of coffee houses and Internet cafes and a prohibition against chewing gum.
The efforts failed. Spectacularly.
The extent of the failure was shown dramatically by the Great Mosque Shoot-Out a few days ago. Abdel-Latif Moussa, the jefe grande of the Salifist based group, Jund Ansar Allah (Warriors of God), preached a sermon of direct defiance to the Hamas regime. Hamas responded literally within minutes with an armed attack on the mosque.
The consequent firefight lasted several hours. More than a few of Allah's Warriors and some Hamas gun slingers were sent to Paradise (or its antipodes.) Abdel-Latif reportedly blew himself up as Hamas' gunsels closed in on his house.
End of firefight. But not end of story.
The Jund Ansar Allah drew its membership from the younger components of the Gaza population. These men are and have been bitterly frustrated by the failure of Hamas to establish a properly Islamist polity and society as well as its apparent lack of a will-to-combat against Israel.
The tipping point came with Operation Cast Lead. The ease with which the IDF penetrated the Hamas "defenses" as well as the utter lack of any response by Hamas in the weeks following the IDF withdrawal moved more and more young (and youngish) men into the ranks of JAA and other, smaller, but no less Islamist jihadist groups in the Strip.
Hamas has no choice now but to move further and faster along the road to the most extreme form of Islamist jihadism. In this, their sponsor, Iran, will no doubt be both supportive and gratified.
The continued refocusing by Hamas on Islamist jihadism has a number of implications. None of them are positive from the perspective of forming a Mideast peace deal.
As Hamas goes so also must Fatah and its larger cousin, the Palestinian Authority. While the West Bank areas under the control of the PA are both tranquil and prosperous in comparison to "Hamastan," the PA must contend with its own growing body of Islamist jihadist leaning young men. As the recently concluded Fatah party congress demonstrated, there is an appreciable generation gap in its ranks. At the moment the old men of Fatah hold power but they have been forced to admit representatives of the younger, more militant, far more Islamist jihadist oriented men into the leadership circle.
As in many, if not most, "revolutionary" dynamics there has been, is, and will be a thrust to the "left," the more extreme, more passionate, more simplistic, more totalistic position. While much of Crane Britton's model of revolution has been disproved, this steady move to the extreme remains unchallenged.
The Islamist jihadist worldview is simple, easy to understand. Its goals are firm, well-defined, utterly totalistic in nature. Its dynamic takes advantage not only of a firm base well established in the Muslim faith and its practice over centuries, it also fully taps into the passions driven by frustration, fear, and bitterness. It, like other ideologies including Marxism-Leninism and National Socialism, promises victory. Unlike these other, purely secular faiths, Islamist jihadism promises a win-win: Victory in death by instant passage to Paradise.
No mistake must be made about it: Islamist jihadism has an appeal and a power almost impossible to underestimate. This is equally true whether one accepts the sociological/economic explanation of jihadism or one which focuses on the linkage between personal identity and personal religious belief.
As Islamist jihadism becomes an every increasing driver of the agendas and actions of Hamas and, inevitably, the PA, the quest for the ever elusive goal of a comprehensive peace in the Mideast will become ever more difficult. Not simply because both Hamas and the PA will be more resistant to any form of compromise. Nor because Arab states generally will back the fulminating irredentism in order to protect themselves from Islamist jihadist attack.
While these two factors in and of themselves would be sufficient to put a speed bump of Mount Everest proportions on the road to peace, they will be joined by a third. Israel will match the Arabs intransigence for intransigence.
This tit-for-tat dynamic will ensue not because the current Israeli government is more obstinate than most (although it sure can seem that way) but because any violent action taken by the Arabs must result eventually in an even more violent Israeli response. The Israeli government is not any more loath to defend its people, territory, and interests than is the government of the US or any other country.
As was demonstrated in the long months of constant Hamas attacks, the government of Israel can be very, very patient. It matters not that the patience is required by purely tactical considerations such as assuring minimal world and, more importantly, US disapproval of the IDF counter blow. The critical fact is that all patience comes to an end. The record shows convincingly that when it does, it is the Arabs who suffer the most death, the greater destruction.
The historical record also demonstrates that every time the Arab "tit" is followed by the Israeli "TAT," peace hopes and plans vanish like a desert mirage. This brutal reality is, of course, central to the Islamist jihadist agenda.
The prohibition of chewing gum may seem humorous. The stick-women-back-in-garbage-sacks regulations may be disgusting. In and of themselves these things don't matter--except to those directly involved. Even though the more revolting (to most Westerners at least) aspects of Shariah may violate human rights, the moves by Hamas are no more repugnant than practices already long established in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.
What is most important, what must be firmly gripped by policy makers in the US, is that the imposition of Shariah is not the end of the Islamist jihadist agenda. No. It is merely the beginning. The next stage is the ramping up of violence, of terror, of attacks on Israeli (and other) civilians. The real deal, the nitty-gritty of the Islamist jihadist game plan, is the total blockage of any Mideast peace.
The initiative rests not with the diplomats or the Deep Thinkers of the Obama administration. The power of decision and action does not reside with genuflections before the totems of Islam. Nor does it lie with those who posit a sociological or economic or educational response to the power of Islamist jihadism.
No. The initiative, the capacity to control the nature and direction of affairs in the Arab-Israeli conflict rests solely with those willing to kill and die in keeping with their True Belief. It rests with the trigger pullers and suicide bombers. More, it lives with those ambitious, driven men who control the pullers of triggers and pushers of clickers.
Whether anyone likes the idea or not, the ground truth is that the game is being run as it has been for some years now by the Islamists, the jihadists, the men of evil. Get a grip on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment