In Focus: The Islamic Republic of Gaza How can the project to liberate Palestine be saved from collapse, asks Galal Nassar The culture of exclusion and narrow mindedness, of the claim to a monopoly on the absolute truth, branding those who beg to differ as traitors and heretics, breeds fanatics, militias, sectarian violence and groups that clamour to proclaim entities like an "Islamic Republic of Gaza" over which they have an exclusive right to rule. Such a mode of behaviour proliferates like a particularly virulent weed in times of political decay and military defeat, especially in areas gripped by poverty, unemployment, weakness and frustration, as is the case in Gaza. The situation in Gaza is further aggravated by an economic stranglehold as well as by an authority that fosters, protects and uses such movements to terrorise the people, intimidate opponents and purge political adversaries. Not infrequently, outside powers and forces have fostered such trends and groups, only to discover that the magic formula they used against others has turned against them. The most notorious example of this phenomenon is the Taliban, bred and fed by the US to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Then they were termed freedom fighters, later becoming the "terrorist" scourge that provided the grounds for the US invasion. Al-Qaeda took root in a similar manner and for the same purpose. The horrors it subsequently perpetrated provided the US and other Western powers with an excuse to brand the Palestinian liberation struggle and other national resistance movements as terrorism and thus negate the universally sanctioned right to resist occupation and oppression. Yet a further example of the cynical use of terrorism unfolded in Lebanon following crimes committed by the Fatah Islam militia. The militia members took flight and hid out in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, giving Lebanese authorities the excuse to invade the camp, destroy it and drive out its inhabitants. These people, whose camp has yet to be reconstructed, are yet another tragic example of how civilians pay the price for organised violence. The militant Islamist group Jund Ansar Allah emerged in Gaza against the backdrop of both Israel's stranglehold on the Strip and under a brutish ruling authority. After having opted for military force as the means to settle Palestinian differences and seize control of Gaza, Hamas evidently succumbed to the lustre and allure of power. Its subsequent actions, from suppressing other Islamist and political forces on the pretext that their independent political activities or expressions of resistance conflict with the interests of the Palestinian people, their violations of civil rights and individual freedoms, and their oppressive laws and regulations, proclaim their determination to impose their own beliefs on others. Nothing speaks louder of this intent than their edicts compelling women lawyers to cover their heads, making the galabiya the school uniform for girls, and decreeing similar dress codes for female mannequins. More insidious are the interventions in people's private affairs by the morals police. Hamas has an endless store of excuses for its random arrests. It has rounded up and incarcerated most Fatah members in Gaza, just as the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has rounded up Hamas members in the West Bank. Both groups seem bent on undermining the Palestinian national project, pursuing factional interests that have nothing whatsoever to do with the welfare of the Palestinian people and that only serve the American and Israeli regional projects. Hamas wants to turn Gaza into an Islamic emirate. Towards this end it has issued a series of laws and edicts that accomplish two general aims: they force its vision and beliefs on others, and in so doing ensure that Hamas has a monopoly on truth and on what is in the best interests of the Palestinian people. Ironically, last week Hamas turned its wrath on Jund Ansar Allah, a group with its hearts set on the same goal. Justifying its assault against the rival Islamist militia, Hamas maintained that its members once belonged to the former, Fatah- controlled security agency in Gaza. The pretext is particularly curious given that some Jund Ansar Allah members were closely connected to Hamas and, indeed, carried out many acts of murder and destruction on behalf of, or at least with the cognizance of, Hamas's security agencies. Force is no way to handle internal relations. It breeds greater extremism and spurs fragmentation. Hamas, with its ideological absolutism and political exclusionism, with the witch hunts and repressive tactics it has used to establish its monopoly on authority, has already served as the catalyst for the proliferation of ever more virulent clones. These can serve only one purpose -- to hand the Palestinians' enemies the gift of being able to brand their struggle as "terrorist" and to hand Israel an excuse for perpetuating its occupation, the blockade and other injustices. Suppressing civil liberties and individual freedoms and disseminating a culture of suspicion, combining this with inquisitorial methods, is a recipe for disaster. The only way out of the current impasse is to guarantee civil liberties and individual rights and institutionalise political plurality. If Hamas wants to market itself abroad as a centrist movement and establish non-extremist credentials the last thing it should be doing is engage in shootouts and pitched battles, precipitating a downward slide into security breakdown. The effect of all this is to perpetuate and aggravate divisions and set people at each other's throats over control of a governing authority that exercises no real power. It is hard to contemplate what will happen should the Palestinian situation continue in its current, repugnant direction. As if the Palestinians have not suffered enough already from political rifts and infighting, now they face a one- upmanship in fanaticism that will spawn a plethora of preachers and sermonisers, self-proclaimed caliphs and emirs, transforming Palestine into a hotbed of bigotry and religious quackery that violates the most essential tenets of Islam. Nothing could be of greater help to the agendas of forces antagonistic to Palestinian and Arab national causes, especially in this era of mounting hostility towards Islam and Muslim peoples. How could terrorism cloaked as jihad or national liberation conceivably promote a cause for which someone is willing to blow himself up at a wedding, a funeral, a house of worship, or a restaurant, taking dozens of innocent lives along with him? What possible moral points are scored by indiscriminate and senseless killing? Such mindless, ratuitous violence undermines the legitimacy of national struggle and makes a mockery of the right to resist occupation. If Hamas is to avert the alarming prospects described above it must undertake a comprehensive revision of its practices and policies with regard to the Palestinian national cause and social affairs. The Palestinians still live under occupation. What should be foremost in everyone's mind is to do what it takes to end division, mend rifts and unify behind a common strategy in order to safeguard the project of national liberation from collapse.
