Hamas: When a Former Client Becomes an Implacable Enemy : Israel: The Likud government originally saw this Muslim fundamentalist organization as a welcome alternative to the PLO.

Anger, fear and anxiety are writ large on the faces of the inhabitants in the poverty-ridden shanty towns and refugee camps of Gaza Strip. The entire area, with its population of 700,000, is now under curfew. The unprecedented deportation of 418 Palestinian activists by Israel’s military administration over the weekend has focused attention on the Islamic organization known as Hamas.

What unleashed the wrath of Israel’s left-of-center government was the kidnaping and subsequent murder of an Israeli border police officer by a Hamas hit team. Since the June, 1992, elections--when Labor’s Yitzhak Rabin succeeded Likud’s Yitzhak Shamir as prime minister--Hamas has increased its attacks against both Palestinians and the Israelis. Hamas’ wave of violence has resulted in the killing of 17 Israeli soldiers and civilians, as well as the murder of nearly 50 innocent Palestinian men and women suspected of “collaborating” with Israel’s occupying authorities or being involved in crimes against morality such as drug trafficking. However, the truth is that most of the killings were motivated by religious zealotry and political hatred.

“Ironically,” explained Yisrah Silberman, an Israeli scholar from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who specializes in the history of the group, “Hamas was born in the Gaza Strip at the end of the ‘70s, under Israeli rule.”

Hamas’ ideology and its religious and political beliefs--indeed its very identity-- are rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood movement, founded in Egypt in the ‘30s. The secular authorities of Egypt fought tirelessly against the Muslim Brotherhood and succeeded in suppressing the movement. But its message of Muslim unity and enmity toward the West and modern Western culture spread to the Gaza region, which belonged to Egypt until after the 1967 War with Israel.

After the war, when Israel acquired the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, with a total of 1.3 million Palestinian inhabitants, the government faced a new challenge. Most of the Palestinians at that time identified with the national goals of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which opposed the Israeli occupation and sought the creation of a Palestinian state.

Seeking to undermine the influence of the PLO and its leader, Yasser Arafat, in the occupied territories, Israeli governments--especially since the right-wing Likud came to power in 1977--encouraged formation of Palestinian forces that would serve as an alternative to the PLO-dominated factions. It was a typical “divide and conquer” tactic used by most occupying forces throughout history--from the Roman Empire to the British rulers of India.

These supposedly “alternative” creations indirectly supported by the Israeli authorities included the Muslim fundamentalists. While Israel’s military and security forces severely restricted the movement of any Palestinians who maintained connections with the PLO, the Islamic movement was cautiously supported by several Israeli governments of the 1970s and early ‘80s.

The groups’ messengers went to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other rich Gulf states to raise funds. Israeli military authorities allowed them to import this money to the West Bank and Gaza, where it was used to build new mosques, schools, religious community centers, sports clubs and clinics. The relative wealth of the Muslims combined with their message about a return to religious roots, appealed strongly to young Palestinians. Thousands of them turned up for Friday prayers and joined Koran study classes. Families made use of the clinics for medical care and the community centers.

“We saw the fundamentalists mainly as an unthreatening social force aiming to improve the bad conditions and standards of living of the Palestinians,” reveals Gen. Eshraim Snea, a former Israeli military governor of the Occupied Territories. But in 1988, a few months after the Palestinians rebelled against Israel and started their uprising, Snea and most of the Israelis realized how wrong it was to treat the fundamentalists favorably.

On Aug. 18, 1988, the various Muslim charity and professional associations formed the umbrella organization of Hamas, Arabic for “enthusiasm,” or “fervor” but also meaning “Islamic resistance movement.” Hamas, in its charter, contended that the soil of all Palestine is a wakf (Muslim property) that belongs to the Muslims forever.

In Hamas’ vision, there is no place for Israel as an independent state of the Jewish people. The mosques, schools and clubs that Israel indirectly helped to build became hothouses of religious and political agitation as well as military training centers against Israel. Hamas also secretly formed its military wing and declared jihad, or holy war, against Israel. Since then, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, its charismatic founding leader, and hundreds of his devoted supporters were arrested by Israeli troops and put in jail.

Yet, Hamas has managed to inflict serious damage to Israel’s military presence in the Occupied Territories and a psychological blow to its morale. Hamas activists, described by Israeli authorities as “bloody murders and terrorists,” have desperately been trying to sabotage the already dead-locked Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Palestinian political scientists estimated last week that, while the PLO remains the dominant force in the Palestinian society, Hamas managed to draw the support of 20% of all West Bank Palestinians and nearly 40% for all Gazans.

“We know now,” says Snea, now a Labor Party member of the Israeli Parliament, “that we must make a distinction between Hamas, with whom we have nothing in common, and the moderates, mainstream secular elements among the Palestinians.”

These words echo the party line used by the Rabin government explaining its decision to deport to Lebanon the 418 Hamas members. “True,” admits Amnon Rubinstein, a Cabinet minister and law professor, “the decision was not easily taken and has its legal problems, but we hope that it would decrease the influence of Hamas and would encourage moderate Palestinians and eventually enhance the peace talks in order to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.”

But Arafat, from his Tunis headquarters, described the deportation as a “death blow to the peace” and ordered his delegation to leave the Washington peace talks--to return only when Israel takes back the deportees.

Though shaken by the world-wide condemnation, Israeli leaders still strongly believe that, within a few days, after the anger over the deportation dies down, the PLO and other moderate Arab forces will realize the struggle against Hamas is not a disservice to the peace cause and to their own interest. The peace talks would be resumed with a stronger involvement of the new Clinton Administration.

Isreali officials also point out that the rise of Muslim fundamentalism is not just an Israeli-Palestinian problem. Arab countries have their own fears. Their leaders, mainly nationalist and secular, find themselves increasingly challenged by fundamentalist zealotry.

The 1979 revolution in Iran has been supplemented by extremist Islamic echoes throughout the vast Arab world. The military government of Sudan has turned strictly Muslim. In Algiers, fundamentalists won the elections a few months ago. Fundamentalists are building strength in Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Indeed, Muslim fundamentalists were responsible for the 1981 killing of President Anwar Sadat, as revenge for signing the peace treaty with Israel and for his Western-style attitudes.

Although Israeli and Arab leaders don’t like to admit that they have a comment interest in stemming the rising fundamentalist tide, the reality of the Middle East is forcing the moderate governments and secular organizations to work toward the same goal.