Palestinians Ponder Life Under Hamas

In a state-of-the-art fitness center, men and women sweat side by side on the treadmills. American music videos pump away at full volume. On a plush couch in the lobby, a young Palestinian couple giggle over coffee, she twirling a lock of long hair between fingers tipped with cherry-red nail polish.

The scene hardly matches the vision of a devoutly Islamic society that the militant Palestinian group Hamas has long championed. And until recently, few in the Palestinians’ secular heartland ever gave that much thought.

But with Hamas’ landslide win in last month’s parliamentary elections, a tremor of unease is rippling through Ramallah, the West Bank’s administrative and commercial capital, and the most Westernized of Palestinian towns.

Here, an array of behavior that strict Islamists deem deeply impious is an elementary part of ordinary life -- moviegoing, mingling of the sexes, unveiled women with fashionable coiffures, bars and restaurants that serve up alcohol along with jazz and French-accented bistro fare.

“We’re moving into uncharted territory,” said Abdul Jabbar Paredes, the manager of Tri Fitness Gym, the biggest and most modern health club in the Palestinian territories, where the main workout floor and the half-Olympic-sized swimming pool are co-ed.

Some Palestinians worry about a potential erosion of day-to-day freedoms through the actions of a Hamas-run government or simply through increased social pressure. In the longer term, they are also examining the conventional assumption that a future Palestinian state will be a secular one.

“For many years, what most people envisioned in terms of statehood was very much in the nationalist-secular model of the PLO,” said Ziad abu Amr, a lawmaker from Gaza City who ran as an independent but got a crucial endorsement from Hamas. “Now, no one really knows what the model is going to be.”

The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, set up nearly a dozen years ago under the interim Oslo peace accords, was one of the most secular regimes in the Arab world. During the last five years of fighting with Israel, however, many of its senior leaders publicly adopted a more pious style of behavior -- in part to counter the growing influence and popularity of fundamentalist movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

In the wake of its unexpected victory in the Jan. 25 vote, Hamas has been treading carefully on the question of how Palestinian social and religious mores might be expected to change under the new administration.

The formation of a new government still is in the early stages; Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday held his first talks in Gaza with leaders of the newly elected Hamas parliamentary bloc. The new legislature is to hold its first meeting Feb. 16.

In the first flush of triumph, some newly elected Hamas lawmakers made drastic-sounding pronouncements that were quickly played down by the group’s senior leadership.

One outspoken proponent of a more overtly Islamic lifestyle was Sheik Mohammed Abu Tir, the No. 2 candidate on Hamas’ national slate, who caused a stir when he said Hamas would seek to make Sharia, the Islamic judicial code, the law of the land. A new Hamas lawmaker, Mariam Farhat, told reporters soon after her election that the group would require women to cover their heads.

“No, no, none of this is the case,” Ismail Haniya, who led the Hamas slate and has emerged as its main spokesman, said when asked about such statements. “In terms of Islamic behavior, we will seek to educate and persuade, not to enforce.”

Some of Haniya’s fellow senior leaders, though, are more strident in their views. “There is no problem in modern life for which the solution cannot be found in the Koran,” said Mahmoud Zahar, a founding member of Hamas who routinely refuses to grant interviews to female journalists unless their heads are covered.

Early indicators of enforced piety have been seen in Palestinian municipalities where Hamas won local elections last year. Authorities in the northern West Bank town of Kalkilya, for example, canceled plans for an arts festival that was deemed too Western and immoral.

Israel is alarmed by the ascendancy of a militant movement sworn to its destruction, and some Israeli observers have predicted swift and sweeping social change in the Palestinian territories once a Hamasendorsed leadership is in place.

“The mosques will flourish, and Palestinian television will broadcast much more religious content,” commentator Roni Shaked wrote in Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper. “This will lead to a climate that will increase the rift with Israel, and heighten hatred toward it.”

Some Palestinians disagree with that assessment. Commentators have pointed out that the deposed Fatah faction won 45 votes in the 132-seat legislature, enough to block any changes to the Basic Law, a constitution-like document that enshrines religious freedom and women’s rights.

But many Palestinians believe that once the new government is in place, people will begin policing their own public behavior, out of a feeling of intimidation.

“We think there could be a chilling effect, whether or not any laws are actually changed,” said Samer Makhlouf, who helps run a cultural center in Ramallah that screens foreign films and stages productions of Western plays.

Already, very different codes of conduct apply in strait-laced, isolated Gaza -- Hamas’ traditional home turf -- and the more socially liberal West Bank.

In Gaza, few women venture out with heads uncovered. In conservative southern Gazan towns like Khan Yunis, a black veil that leaves only slits for the eyes, together with a flowing robe and black gloves, is a much more common sight than even a few years ago. In Ramallah, many women wear Western fashions and go unveiled.

Some of the anxiety felt by secular Palestinians is finding an outlet in jokes being posted in Internet chat rooms and circulated by text message.

One holds that if a motorist is stopped for speeding, the police won’t ask to see a driver’s license; they will instead want to know whether he has performed his pre-prayer ablutions. Nadim Khoury, the proprietor of the only Palestinian brewery, has joked publicly that he could change the label of his Taybeh beer to incorporate the Hamas flag.

But beneath the humor is a current of unease. Even some Palestinians who voted for the Hamas ticket to protest corruption within the long-entrenched Fatah are wondering whether their personal cultural values will collide with the new order.

Rheem Mohammed, a 21-year-old student at Bir Zeit University outside Ramallah, said she voted for Hamas, thinking its leaders would win enough parliamentary seats to become a large and influential opposition party -- not necessarily the ruling one.

“I support them, yes -- but I would stop doing so if they did anything to infringe on my rights as a woman,” she said.

Mohammed was a walking example of the flexibility in dress and behavior in the Palestinian territories. Like many devout Muslim women, she wore a fitted head scarf -- but her heavy mascara, pink eye shadow and tight jeans, perfectly acceptable on her West Bank campus, would be considered risque in Gaza.

Some of the more secular pockets of the West Bank -- such as Ramallah and Bethlehem and the belt of villages surrounding them -- are also areas where Christians have a larger presence than elsewhere in the Palestinian territories.

In the weeks since its victory, Hamas has been making concerted efforts to reassure Palestinian Christians that their religious rights will be respected. During the campaign, Hamas endorsed several Christian candidates, and one ran on its slate.

It also offered protection after Fatah-linked gunmen in Gaza threatened to attack Christian churches over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad printed in European newspapers. Zahar made a personal visit to a church in Gaza City to offer the services of guards from Hamas’ military wing, the Izzidin al-Qassam Brigade. The priest was somewhat nonplused, but thanked him.

Some Palestinians said they believed that in coming weeks and months -- and perhaps years -- Hamas would be preoccupied with charting a course that would stave off diplomatic isolation, yet keep the loyalty of its core constituency.

“They have so many problems to deal with, whether or not to recognize Israel, how to relate to the international community, problems with foreign donors, and generally keeping everything afloat,” said Osama Khalaf, whose family owns two restaurants in Ramallah that serve liquor.

“It seems to me they will be so distracted with other matters that on the social level, they will simply have to leave things alone,” he said.

“At least for a while.”