Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Anti-Hamas rallies staged in Gaza
Thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have taken part in protests against the territory’s Hamas rulers, despite a ban on public gatherings.

About 20 people were injured in clashes after outdoor prayers were organised that turned into marches in main towns.

Protesters accuse the Islamist Hamas of violating civil liberties and using mosques to spread political propaganda.

The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Gaza says this is the biggest show of opposition to Hamas since it took control in June.

Shikaki, The Politics of Paralysis II: Peace Now or Hamas Later, Foreign Affairs, 1998

Palestinian society’s traditionalism makes the fundamentalists of Hamas the only credible alternative to Arafat’s center, and they feed off frustration over Israeli intransigence. If the diplomatic deadlock, graft, and illiberalism continue after Arafat, Hamas could well take over.

Hamas: Isolate or Engage? - Council on Foreign Relations

In this cfr.org online debate, Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, and Shmuel Rosner, chief U.S. correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, discuss whether or not to engage Hamas.

Hamas - Council on Foreign Relations, Updated: June 8, 2007

Hamas is the largest and most influential Palestinian militant movement. In January 2006, the group won the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) general legislative elections, defeating Fatah, the party of the PA’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, and setting the stage for a power struggle.

While it is important not to assume that Muslim hostility to Israel is simply the result of anti-Semitism, it is also important to recognize that Islamist rhetoric is often anti-Semitic.

anti-semitic-motifs-in-the-ideology-of-hizballah-and-hamas.htm

Themes borrowed from European Christendom were adapted by incorporating explicit Islamic references in them. The most important example of this process, according to Prof. Bernard Lewis, was the restating of the story of Muhammad’s relations with the Jews. “Instead of being a minor nuisance, ineffectual and unsuccessful in their plots against him,” as they were traditionally depicted, “they [the Jews] are depicted as a dark and evil force, conspiring to destroy the Prophet, and continuing as the main danger to Islam.”6 Yehoshafat Harkabi calls this trend the “Islamization of the hatred of the Jews.”7

Hostility to the State of Israel and to Zionism as an ideology arising from the Arab-Israeli conflict, while not in itself necessarily a manifestation of anti-Semitism, gradually gave rise to a deeper, irreconcilable hatred that does not differentiate between Israelis, Zionists or Jews.

Daniel Sobelman - STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT, Vol 7 No 2, 2004
The exchange of fire that takes place every few months on the northern border between Israel and Hizbollah evokes time and again extreme comments in the Israeli political scene, such as calls “to put the lights out in Beirut” or to attack Syria, and other demands for sweeping strategic retaliation against Hizbollahs tactics. In practice, Israel adopts a far more moderate approach to the complex situation along the Lebanese border. The caution employed by Israel and Hizbollah - each in its own initiated moves and responses to the other - contributes to the relative stability maintained along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Meditating On War And Guilt, Zen Says It’s Sorry NYT 111.03

Turkey - Abdullah Gul - New York Times, September 2, 2007
Still, even if religion in public life is not on the table now, questions of power and class are. Mr. Gul, like many observant Muslims, is from Kayseri, a working-class city in Turkey’s heartland. The urban secularists who were in power for so long are used to thinking of themselves as the elite.

Shiite’s Tale: How Gulf With Sunnis Widened - New York Times 8/31/2007

BAGHDAD, Aug. 30 — Shatha al-Musawi, a Shiite member of Parliament, first encountered the Sunni-Shiite divide on the day the Americans captured Saddam Hussein. Hearing the news with a close Sunni friend named Sahira, Ms. Musawi erupted like a child.

Relations are collapsing, burdened by violent history and all parties’ desire for power.

“I jumped, I shouted, I came directly to Sahira and I hugged her,” Ms. Musawi said. “I was crying, and I said, ‘Sahira, this is the moment we waited for.’ ”

At least it should have been: Mr. Hussein’s henchmen killed Ms. Musawi’s father when she was only 13; Sahira, too, was a victim, losing her closest uncle to the Hussein government.

But instead of celebrating, Sahira stood stiffly. A day later, Ms. Musawi said, Sahira’s eyes were red from crying. And before long, like so many Sunnis and Shiites here, the two stopped talking.