Transcript of Remarks by John Voll and Amjad Atallah
'For the Record' No. 258 (12 July 2006)

At a recent Palestine Center briefing, John Voll, associate director of the Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Center for Christian-Muslim Understanding at Georgetown University, and Amjad Atallah, president of the Strategic Assessments Initiative, analyzed the historical and current political standing of Hamas. John Voll argued that Hamas represents crystallization of the Palestinian nationalist movement and political Islam as they have evolved respectively during the twentieth century. Amjad Atallah, speaking next, argued that Hamas has made itself indispensable to both the United States' and Fateh's short-term interests. He said Hamas is linking its steps with regional events but warned that only increased instability can result from attempts to overthrow either Hamas or Hizbollah because of their synchronized actions.

The Palestine Center
Washington, DC
12 July 2006

John Voll:

We both promise to not talk too long so you can, in fact, ask questions at the end. It is really interesting to see wall-to-wall people on this subject and think back to when I started my work in Islamic movements a long time ago. When I was a graduate student and decided that I would do my doctoral dissertation on a Sufi Tariqa, my classmates in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard would say, 'What's a Sufi Tariqa?' When I would say, 'I'm looking at how Islamic organizations that represent movements of renewal and resurgence cope with modernity,' I would usually hear the rejoinder, 'Ah, well, that's a nice sort of museum subject. But why don't you go where the action really is and study the Communist Party in Syria?' Or, 'Why don't you work on Nasserism?'

If there would have been this center here in 1965, forty years ago, and they would have announced a session on the religious dimensions of the Palestinian movement maybe three people would have appeared. That in itself is part of the important dynamic of my part of today's subject, which is to look at the past, or the background [of Hamas], and try to see where we are as we get to the 1990s and the twenty-first century.

It would be possible to do two totally separate narratives for the background and history and context of Hamas. One narrative would be the Palestinian one: How does Hamas fit into the development of Palestinian nationalism in the broader Palestinian movement? The other narrative, which could almost have no relationship to that first one, would be: How does Hamas fit into the narrative of the Islamic resurgence that grew in the second half of the twentieth century?

What I'd like to do is briefly to introduce both of those narratives and point out, in fact, how it is that, by the time we hit the 1990s, Hamas represents a historically significant development within a much broader framework than simply one particular organization among many in the Arab World.

The first reminder I'd like to make is to look at the Palestinian narrative'the narrative of the history of what we now think of as the Palestinian national movement in the twentieth century'and be reminded that our subject now changes the way we should be looking at the story of the Palestinian Movement in the first 87 years of the twentieth century. Most of the time that story is told without reference to Islamic movements. If we look back at the first 40 years of the twentieth century, however, it is possible to identify a religious dimension, particularly an Islamic dimension, which, if one is dealing with essentially the secular history, developed out of telling the story of Fateh and Yasser Arafat and company. [This story often] gets ignored.

Now we start with the Ottoman Empire and what later becomes thought of as the 'Palestine Question.' We start in the context of a totally different narrative and a totally different question. It's still a question but in those days it was the 'Eastern Question,' as in, 'What happens to the Ottoman Empire?' There was no sense really of talking about Palestine or a variety of movements and peoples and groups that would later become important.

Instead, what we are looking at in the eastern end of the Mediterranean is a set of societies where you have great families that are the primary organizers of activity. You have regional identifications and you have religious identifications. From the very beginning, the organizations that were responding in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to the beginnings of Jewish settlements in the eastern Mediterranean were based on the abilities of families to mobilize support; the ability of people who were in urban centers or people who [were affiliated with] religious organization.

At the end of the First World War, when the contemporary boundaries of the Middle East were drawn by the European peace settlement as it was set for the Middle East, the British Governor General of the newly-created Mandate of Palestine arbitrarily appointed someone who was to speak for the Arabic-speaking population. That organization was the Supreme Muslim Council. When in the 1930s you had the great revolt of the Arabic-speaking people, it was organized in some way by what was called the Higher Arab Committee, or the High Arab Council.

That fact, as we look at it, tends to obscure the fact that when one scratches the first major era of activism, from 1936-39, its beginnings come with a fiery preacher named Izz ad-din al-Qassam. You have set in motion then the Qassam [Martyrs' Brigades]. Even though he is killed by the British very early on, you have as the organizing symbol of that group not a communist leader, not a brown-shirt Palestinian movement, but an organization whose primary symbolic label is associated with an Islamic leader.

When you get to the first war in 1948, there is by then a significant component for an Islamic organization in that conflict, where you have volunteers from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. I could go into lots of details, but what you have essentially is the presence of Islamic organizations of resistance that date back to the 1930s. As one looks at the highly visible dimension of the conflict, it later shifts. You have essentially the battle over the Palestine Mandate which becomes at the end of the 1940s and throughout the 1950s the Arab-Israeli Conflict. [You also have] the major headline-getters of existing independent Arab states who speak for the inhabitants of the former Mandate of Palestine.

It is not until 1960 that you get an organization set in motion that says the Palestinians should be operating for themselves. There you have the beginnings of Fateh. If you're looking at the Hamas historical narrative and the historical narrative of the Muslim Brotherhood at the beginning and in the late 1950s and in the early 1960s, there was some association. In the 1960s, what you have is the immergence of a non-religiously identified major set of Palestinian organizations that become the most visible dimensions of the Palestinian movement.

During the 1950s-60s, at least some of the historians in the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations say that this was a period where it was fruitless to try to do open resistance. It was a period of mosque building and education, of looking forward to the next generation. There is this grand sort of movement in the 50s and 60s where you get Palestinian organizations. But following the 1967 war, the organizations that have greatest visibility'sort of the mainstream Fateh and the Palestine Liberation Organization and the radical groups or that full spectrum that goes from Arafat to George Habash or Nayef Hawatmah'and in the visible spectrum there isn't any Palestinian organization that is explicitly identified as Islamic in that narrative.

It's interesting to go back and look at the comprehensive studies of the late 1960s and early 1970s of the Palestinian movement'e.g., the remarkably helpful book edited by William Quant and in particular Anne Lesh's article in it. When you look at that, it is as if Islam really does not exist among the Palestinians. But if we look at that period with the perspective of 2006, we can say that in fact there were Islamic organization and groupings that were there. [They were overlooked] because'whether you were a Palestinian Marxist militant, a mainstream Palestinian nationalist, a policy maker in the United State or an Israeli'everybody tended to know that religion, because of modernization, was fading and was going to disappear.

Therefore people didn't have to pay attention to religion. Remarkably in this period, as the secular radicals and as Fateh become increasingly visible as the spokespersons for the Palestinian cause, the Israelis in opposition provide some support for the Islamic groups as a way of providing an alternative to the emergence of the Palestinian movement.

Now, of course, this all changes for a variety of reasons and in a variety of contexts by the end of the 1980s. You have, in late-1987 and 1988, the emergence of an explicitly Islamic organization that is heir to the Muslim Brotherhood of the Egyptian volunteers and the activities of Sheikh [Ahmed Ismail] Yassin. I'll leave that to my colleague to explain what we have now that comes from this, because I want to focus on the second context for a moment. 

By the late 1980s having an Islamic organization as a recognized basis for mobilization was [accepted as] credible. It's not just credible on the streets of Cairo or the streets of Jerusalem, but it was credible here on the streets of Washington, DC as well. In 1965 the idea was that the Muslim Brotherhood was nothing except a has-been.

Some of you may have had Richard Mitchell's book on the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood assigned to you in class. Poor Dick was always trying to convince people that the Muslim Brotherhood really meant something in the late 1906s or early 70s and nobody would believe him Then by the end of the 1980s everybody believed'even more than they should'that 'Oh, so the Muslim Brotherhood is a threat.' Some of you may have seen the History Channel special on the Muslim Brotherhood called, 'The Brotherhood of Terror.' I had some part in that, but basically my major part was to try to tone down the inflammatory stuff that was put in. It is remarkable how much of it got through anyway. But the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat, of the dear old bureaucratic Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a threat, somehow became a credible notion by the end of the 1980s. It was because of the entire history of Islamic movements in general, or that second narrative that I mentioned.

In the 1930s, 40s and 50s you had movements like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the Jamaa't Islamiya in Pakistan that were dedicated to trying to Islamize the modernizing societies in which they found themselves. They were part of the old fashioned nationalism of the upper middle class nationalist who, 'secured independence for their countries' in various movements, whether it was in Asia, the Middle East or Sub-Saharan Africa. They were the old fashioned guys whose basic vision was they wanted to get rid of the colonialists so they could sit in the same chair. Mustafa Nahas didn't want a radically socially changed or transformed Egypt; he just wanted to sit in the same chair'this is of course my personal political view'that Lord Cromer, the British Consul-General had sat in 50 years before.

So you had the old nationalism that had achieved independence for Syria, Lebanon or Jordan, and that faced then the problem of the Palestine Mandate. However, these were people with the color of my hair, the old grey-haired guys. By the 1950s it became clear that the old-fashioned nationalism didn't work. What you needed then were the bright, young, handsome military officers who could 'get things done.' This lead to the emergence of the radical, dictatorial nationalism that was to replace the old-fashioned nationalism. It was even less oriented toward trying to implement Islamic programs.

By the 1970s, it was clear that that kind of program had also not [proven successful]. The emergence of a revolutionary Islamism then led to what was the political Islam of the 1980s. In this context, you had the old, underground, under-emphasized Islamic dimensions of the Palestinian movement becoming more crystallized and clearer as an alternative to the old secular nationalist perspectives.

It's not that Sheikh Yassin was opposed the vision of an independent Palestine, but he did not necessarily accept the view that it should be essentially an Arafatian, or Nasserite, state. Let me suggest that the last great Nasserite'that is the last great standard-barer for the nationalism of the 1906s'was Yasser Araft. He survived the 1970s and 1980s because of the special conditions of Palestine.

However, by the end of the 1980s and early 1990s it was clear to many that there was the need for alternative programs. Hamas in a sense met that need. You have by 1987-89 a coming together of the evolution of the Palestinian movement and the evolution of political Islam in the twentieth century. Hamas in 1987, '88 and '89 represents essentially a crystallization, or synthesis, of those two trends in one organization.

I'll stop here so that I don't take up too much time. Thank you.

Amjad Atallah:

Thank you, Dr. Voll. It's great actually to get a historical perspective of a lot of the issues that we discuss. We always discuss them as if they have appeared out of nowhere. We're always surprised and shocked by them, so it is very useful to have that historical perspective. I also want to thank The Palestine Center for having this series of talks and for always providing a unique forum in which these types of discussions can take place. You don't hear them elsewhere in Washington.

And, I want to thank also the mother of prescience, because who could have imagined. I mean, the timing is perfect. Who could have imagined that the attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government in Palestine would have led to increased violence and regional instability? It falls into the 'who could have predicted that disbanding the Iraqi army would have been a bad idea,' or that the levies in Louisiana would have been breached.

That will be the only sarcastic part of this speech, but the point is that a lot of this was expected and a lot of this was predicted, so it's not a surprise that we're here [talking about Hamas]. I think what we'll do is discuss in a sense why everybody picked the policies that they picked, which have lead us to be right here.

I'll start with describing a Sufi story'which is actually not just a Muslim story, but a story that I guess you hear in many religious and mystical traditions'about the blind men and the elephant. You have probably all heard this. A group of blind men stumble across an elephant and each one is trying to describe the elephant. One grabs the trunk and says, 'Well an elephant is like an anaconda.' Another one grabs the leg and says, 'No, an elephant is like a tree trunk.' Another one touches the side and says, 'No, an elephant is like wall.' One grabs the ear and says, 'No, an elephant is like a fan.' One grabs the tail and says, 'No, an elephant is like a vine.'

The point is, of course, that all of them are right but also, all of them are wrong. In a sense, everyone who has been trying to analyze Hamas, or is looking at this from a specific unique perspective, has come up with an answer that sounds right to them, and which sounds right for the particular context in which they are discussing it, but in fact, which is wrong in terms of an overall picture. So today I will describe each of the blind men. I'm going to describe each of the specific perspectives, and since we're in Washington, I'm going to start with the U.S. and Israeli perspectives.

How is it that Israel and the United State perceive'and they are two separate views, I am not putting them together'how does Israel perceive Hamas and what is Israel's overall goal in the current context?

Israel wants a pliant Palestinian organization that is strong enough to keep the cease-fire with Israel, but not so strong as to ultimately challenge Israeli hegemony over Palestinian lives. It needs to be legitimate enough for Israel to deal with so that it can achieve that cease-fire, but not so legitimate that it could demand negotiations or change the context of the debate by leading a renewed revolution.

Now, that is a tricky thing for Israel to achieve. It's looking for a balance. Hamas recognizes this and made the same interpretation of Israeli concerns, and attempted to actually place itself where it thought Israel would find a quid pro quo, or where it thought it could create a quid pro quo with Israel.

For the United States, though, something different was wanted. Yes, they wanted a pliant Palestinian organization. It had to be one that paid lip service, though, to secular democratic principles'something the Israelis never cared about. It needed to be one that promised nonviolence against Israel and one that was willing to except the creation of an interim state before [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush leaves office. This mean it needs to be strong enough to fight other Palestinian factions, but not strong enough to fight Israel. It needs to be honest enough to have the support of the majority of Palestinians, but corrupt or cynical enough that it can be compromised by U.S. support.

Again, that's a very tricky balance, and Hamas was not very good'it still is not to this day'at reading American interests. Part of the reason, I think, that Hamas cannot read American interests is that it follows a simplistic 'Israel controls America' kind of stereotype whereby if Israel wants to cut a deal with Hamas the