Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance -Conversation with Tareq Baconi

it's really wonderful to have toilet Mahoney here with us this evening direct is a good friend and we've been talking about for a while I was very very happy to have his book on Hamas come out it's a great book and really serves as an incredibly important archive of the history not only of Hamas in the service of many of the developments in terms of the territories and the relationship between Fatah and the PLO and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and original context and you know really looking forward to discussing all of this review the C makes a warm welcome to you Tyra it's good to have him here and to have you on stage thank you daddy can I talk about sort of the fact that you stuck not able to go back yeah okay so Dada is based in da mala he works with the Jerusalem actually I mean II live in Ramallah back to your position is based in Jerusalem he works for the CIA the International Crisis Group and he's there on an Israeli work permit that is renewable every year and he applied for his renewal about three and a half months ago and he still doesn't have the renewal the permit has expired so he came to a man to give the talk and now he cannot go back so he's going to go to London from here and hang out there until he gets the deferment renewed anyway sorry it's not so bad it's not so bad to be hanging out the London West siani tonight's talk I thought it was really particularly timely given a number of things I mean certainly the news earlier this week on Monday that came out of the United States which decided that the illegal settlements in the West Bank are now deemed legal you know who knew for the longest time with what they were illegal the world thought that they were illegal the International Court of Justice deemed that they were illegal their occupations thought that they were illegal but Donald Trump and esteemed authority on international law Mike Pompeo now have decided that they are indeed legal as far as the United States is concerned of course we've all been consumed over the past couple of weeks with unfolding escalation in Reza in Gaza which we will address further than our conversation but you know as we all know Israel assassinated a balata last week a senior commander in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad which is a militant faction nominally aligned with Hamas he can elaborate on that if there's a need and there was subsequent escalation which has triggered another iteration of the tragic cycle of violence including the bombing last Thursday of a family home in there in Bala which killed eight family members including five children predictively the people of Gaza are the ultimate victims in these developments not predictably so though Hamas has played a relatively limited role right even the confrontation has largely been contained between Islamic Jihad and Israel and this might speak to shifting dynamics vis a vie Hamas is role in the Palestinian nationalist movement and armed struggle and is changing relations with Israel and other regional players something that's hopefully we can talk about tonight are Hamas or the haricot and McCallum al-islamiyya is labeled a terrorist group by the West and Israel but for more than 30 years it's been a central pillar in Palestinian nationalism resistance and armed struggle following Oslo it has led defiance in status quo and has had many violent confrontations with Israel we will discuss tonight also whether it also bear some of the blame for the tragic situation that we see today in reza hamas it represents the reluctant government of gaza it provides health care social services and education and police's other militants Gaza factions which is something that has been brought to light now with the activities of Islamic Jihad governance efforts then hamstrung by Hamas acrimonious and often adversarial relationship with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in addition of course to mutual intransigence and unwillingness or inability of the international community to push the parties to a compromise and Hamas is conflicting identities and objective as the leader of the resistance and as in time the government of raza Elevens as we all know but maybe it's not a bad thing to be reminded is home to nearly two million Palestinians who are on the siege the vast majority of them are refugees right and from the wars in 1948 in particular they're subjected to an enduring blockade which started in 2007 and a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis for decades they've been facing occupation and violence hala Reza is supposed to have become independent in the year 2005 and it's not sovereign nor free even the peace independence residents are trapped by the blockades and subjected to frequent Israeli incursions in a sense they are held hostage and arguably they're used as pawns by both Hamas and Israel collateral damage and civilian casualties are taken for granted or worse they're cynically manipulated and leveraged for Solyndra came the 2014 war invade killed more than 2,000 cousins rebuilding costs are estimated that nearly 8 billion u.s. dollars recent protests along the fence the march of return left nearly 300 dead and tens of thousands who are wounded the United Nations in a few years ago in 2015 estimated that Reza will become unfit for human habitation by 2020 by 2020 that's a less than a couple of months from now if the trends that exists there are not reversed just a couple of examples of how bad things are unemployment rates are 50 % electricity is available for only a few hours per day sewage is constantly released directly to the Mediterranean the severe shortage of medicine and medical equipment well tonight we have a chance to discuss all of this and then some with toilet Maconie again tarik as the author of Hamas contained the rise and pacification of the Palestinian resistance he's an analyst for Israel Palestine and economics of conflict at the International Crisis Group based in Jerusalem his writing has appeared in Arabic in Al Kut and the console Rav in English in the New York Review daily the Washington Post foreign affairs foreign policy and a number of other publications Dalia holds a PhD in international relations from King's College London and he also holds an MPhil in international relations from the University of Cambridge and a master's in engineering in chemical engineering specifically from Imperial College London he's previously worked as a policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations and as a consultant in the energy sector he spoke earlier this year on campus in New York at the Center for Palestine studies with rationality I think you were on the panel and you've also been a visiting fellow at Columbia's Middle East Institute so data again welcome we can start with a broad question if you can tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing now the International Crisis Group is may not be familiar to everybody in the audience so what is it what does it do what do you do there and how you've also been energy analysts you've written this book about Hamas and Rosato talk to us a little bit about your trajectory you know you're quite young you've accomplished a lot and you know how do all of these things fit or maybe don't with one another how did you get here I'm still not quite sure if any of this fits into any kind of cohesive picture but so I started I guess in what feels like another lifetime as any good Arab boy I was convinced that I should study engineering it was either engineering or medicine or law so I decided to go with engineering because that was the thing that would leave most of my options open so I began I began my professional life as a chemical engineer and entered entered into the that profession in London so I began working as an energy consultant in London and most of my clients sent it to be in the Middle East so I was spent in spending a disproportionate amount of time in the region and somewhere along the way there was a niggling question there was a sense that I needed to do I needed to learn more I felt that the consulting world was intellectually vacuous in some ways and I needed to learn more and so I began working on a part-time PhD that looked specifically at international relations with a focus on the Middle East and and I focused specifically on on israel-palestine and I think part of that was it was a personal journey so one thing wanting to understand more about my own family history but wanting to do that through the Academy wanting to do that through more rigorous research and more learning and and and and scholarship and so I started working on a PhD in 2006 which was the year that Hamas came to power it was the year that Hamas got elected into the the Legislative Council and for me it was a very it was a moment that was full filled with inconsistencies you know here was a movement that was Islamist that was committed to the use of armed struggle as a means of liberation it was a movement that while it was Islamist was also engaging in the democratic process it was a movement that while it was using suicide bombing was also getting elected by the majority of Palestinians so there were a lot of inconsistencies and it just felt like the right entry points it felt like the right moment for me to start understanding some of the dynamics on the ground and the rest is history as I say I mean I I I followed the movement I interviewed most of its leadership abroad at the time I was unable to go into Palace because I had a Jordanian passport and through my process of naturalization in the UK I was then able to enter Palestine and it wasn't lost on me that I needed my previous colonial overlord to allow me to come into my current the colonial said who me but I was able to come into Palestine in in that way and I spent some time in the Gaza Strip I did a lot of archival research on on Hamas and my my book is a 30 year history of the movement that focuses almost exclusively on Arabic sources so the movements on internal documentation the movements publications and interviews with the movement and and that was a conscious effort to try to bring the history of Hamas back to its own to its own center of gravity rather than rely on the Western interpretation of of the movements so the book came out about a year ago and and shortly after the book came out the International Crisis Group approached me to take the position of their their Israel Palestine fellow based and based in Jerusalem and for those of you who are not familiar with the International Crisis Group it's an NGO headquartered in Brussels and its mission is conflict resolution its mission is to try to limit civilian deaths it was an organization that in some ways came out of a kind of cynicism with the mainstream diplomatic and policy-making world and their goal is to place analysts in different conflict areas all over the world these analysts are our field base they talk to all the actors involved in any conflict there no one is off-limits so for example in Israel Palestine I would talk to Hamas and I would talk to the Israeli right-wing and there's the full spectrum of agents that I tend to interview and that kind of analysis then makes its way to the top level sort of diplomatic community and the goal is when when things begin to escalate when when we're about to tip into conflict which is what happened last week in Gaza the organization then mobilizes its advocacy unit base on very particular information about what's happening at any given moment and it's it's quite a small organization but it's very focused they do very detailed academic work that is been meant to to somehow communicate certain key messages to international policy makers actually on this stage we've had Peter Harlech when he was my hitta - crisis group operating out of Damascus before he left and started synapses so it's great to have you and then a couple of months we're going to have it's under a llama Ronnie was within tonight's group and is now running the Open Society Foundations here in in Nam man so tight if we can and I you know go sympathize because I started off as an engineer right and I did my point yeah and I did my fair bit bit of consulting and then I fired myself actually from a couple of consulting gigs so can we start with the last few days because that may be a good entry point into the book and it to discussion of Hamas so Islamic Jihad you know we don't hear about as much as Hamas of course it's older than Hamas and like Hamas it's an offshoot from the Muslim Brotherhood like Hamas it's received significant funding and weapons from Iran I'm not sure what the case is now given the challenges that Iran is facing and like Hamas it sees violence as an SI element of the nationalist struggle right but unlike Hamas it doesn't have a stake in governing that's why it's you know exclusively a military organization and as we know in response to the assassination of one of the leaders they fired hundreds of wreak rockets into Israel Israel has retaliated or or Israel has shot it Italia to those specific attacks and Hamas initially decided not to respond and for the first time in a decade Israel clarified that was not targeting Hamas was only targeting Islamic Jihad yet Israel holds Hamas as sort of the de facto government responsible the guarantor if you will of policing resistance through this prism explained to us those dynamics dynamics between Islamic Jihad and Hamas both of them with one another but also with Israel you know the leader in Islamic Jihad is assassinated Islamic Jihad retaliates then Israel ups the ante Hamas is sort of out of it explain to us those dynamics I mean how how does it work what does this say about Hamas is evolution if you will at the moment that it is in yeah I mean there's there's there's a lot to unpack there so maybe maybe it's best to start with some history yeah and then talk about the present moment so Hamas and Islamic Jihad are both as you said offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood the Muslim Brotherhood in in with ever since its creation in in Palestine when it began instituting chapters in Palestine what was what which is back in the nineteen forties right it was created in 1928 in its first chapter and Palestine opened up in their early 1940s around the same time as it started here in 1945 what it started here for was a chapter in the other salon yeah and so it was it was an organization that was committed to this idea of Islamization that it doesn't actually matter that there's an there's an occupation of the territories after 67 the focus was on building a virtuous Society and the idea was that okay liberation from occupation it comes after the creation of a society that's pious that's rooted in Islamic ideals that's quite a conservative in its social norm so the idea was very much a stahma's ation than liberation which was something that created a lot of tension between the Muslim Brotherhood and the nationalist sort of secular factions like like the PLO or represented by the PLO eventually but like all the other factions under the PLO in the 1980s when when the okey patient just in the lead-up to the First Intifada that prism of Islamization towards liberation got challenged by a small group that splintered off in 1984 that was called Islamic Jihad Islamic Jihad flipped this model on its head they believed that actually you need to liberate first and then Islam eyes so the first thing that needs to happen is to lift occupation to resist the occupation and only once independence is achieved then you can focus internally on domestic issues in terms of focusing on on internal Islam on the internal Islamic Islamic Jihad from the beginning so I'd interrupt had a far more local and if you will parochial perhaps view then then Hamas absolutely and you know even Hamas has a part more local view that there was live other hood can talk about this I think hummus is very much broken from this regional idea of the Muslim Brotherhood and is very much in nationalist but it meant and we can talk about that but yes it was love society it about the occupation rights about Palestine Islamic she had was was created with very much that focus on on resistance now they began doing armed operations against the Israelis throughout the 1980s which created a lot of pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood that their agenda of Islamization was missing the big picture it was missing the fact that there was an occupation presence and so in 1987 the Muslim Brotherhood decided to create Hamas and it was one of those scenarios where actually the offshoot ends up subsuming the the mother so the Hamas emerged as a movement that eventually took over the entire infrastructure of the Muslim Brotherhood so the Muslim Brotherhood essentially became Hamas in 1987 and their program was one that was focused on liberation as well so didn't Israel also been sort of facilitated a little bit of Italy as he was given a permit yeah it's it's it's it's an interesting thing because Palestinians always say especially people who talk on Hamas always say you know Israel created Hamas Israel Israel with was the entity that sort of allowed Hamas to prosper the reality is a bit more complex the fact that what I just said about the Muslim Brotherhood focused on Islamization before liberation men that is really is viewed it as a social movement they didn't view it as a military movement and they did view it as a political movement so what that meant was that when she raha media scene or other leaders would apply for licences to create welfare centers or charities or whatever it was they would get them when the PLO or Fatah or other specific movements the FLP pflp would apply for these licenses they wouldn't get them and so there was very much this facilitation of the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood but that wasn't within the understanding that necessarily the the sort of the conscious understanding that this is creating an Islamist movement but Israel benefited and and and very much encouraged the kind of tuition yes so whenever there would be clashes especially in the Gaza Strip between the PLO and the secular movements and and Hamas Israel would facilitate those so any kind of occupying forces would suddenly not be present in the vicinity and and that can is it was class classic divide and rule and and you saw that in Hamas is early early years but so that the point being that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have very similar ideologies but by the time Hamas was created it took over the infrastructure of the Muslim Brotherhood and so became them much bigger much more institutionalized much better funded and better resourced Islamist organization and Islamic Jihad decided to maintain its own its own cadre of individuals its own military its own its own structure and that that dynamic continues to this day so what we have today is an organization which is Islamic Jihad which continues to focus very specifically on liberation it focuses very specifically on the use of armed struggle to achieve liberation Hamas on the other hand evolved away from being only a military movement and decided first considered running in the elections in the 1990s decided not to and then in 2005 decided to run in the elections and so what we have is Hamas as a military movement entering into governments and becoming taking on the responsibility of governance so the dynamic we have in the Gaza Strip today is of a government and Islamist government that continues to remain dedicated to the notion of armed struggle and a smaller offshoot which is the Islamic Jihad which is only focused on armed struggle Authority they win 74 out of 150 two seats of the legislature they won by a landslide absolutely I mean we can talk about some of those results as well but the dynamic we have today when is Hamas as the monopolize er of all forms of resistance in Gaza so as the biggest party as the most funded well-funded most well resourced party Hamas is really the monopoly of all armed factions ever since since the great amount of return protests began last March all these factions created what came to be known as the joint operation strong the joint operations room is essentially a committee that has representatives from the different Palestinian factions that are in the Gaza Strip and together they all coordinate their strategy towards Israel they coordinate the type of activities that they're using a defense area in the protests they could coordinate when to fire rockets when not to fire rockets they coordinate if they respond to Israeli military assaults or not now Hamas carries a disproportionate amount of power in that room because of what Hamas is but everything happens more or less by consensus and Islamic Jihad is under Hamas as wing now what we've seen over the course of the past week is that Hamas and Islamic Jihad sort of broke rank in that joint committee room and Islamic Jihad decided to respond to Israel's assassination of its leader even though Hamas wasn't actively involved in the index collation and that comes at you know we can talk about the implications of that but what what the way I read it is Israel has benefited very much from maintaining Hamas as a government in Gaza so for all the rhetoric we hear that Israel is trying that Hamas wants to destroy Israel that Israel is trying to destroy Hamas the reality is both Hamas and Israel need each other and Israel is very interested in maintaining Hamas and power at the same time Ezreal needs to carry out military assaults on the Gaza Strip for various reasons including the fact that there are rockets coming from the Gaza Strip on to Israel and so Islamic Jihad then becomes a perfect spoiler so it becomes the perfect entity that justifies these kinds of attacks and before mahabharata-- was assassinated last week his name started popping up in Israeli media about 12 months ago everyone knew he was going to get assassinated he was already being slated for assassination so this this kind of narrative building this divide and rule now we're seeing it not between secular and is a Islamic party this lasts as long as mass and is that make sure you haven't Gaza fascinating fascinating so let's talk about the governance the role that why did Hamas you know refused to enter a government or to make an attempt in the 1990s but decided in 2005 to run the elections of elections of 2006 and you know they won and you know part of the explanation for them winning is of course the disappointments of people in Fatah thought that being and the Palestinian Authority leadership you know corrupts and like a lot of organizations in the Muslim Brotherhood including Hezbollah in Lebanon they benefit tremendously from providing charity I mean that's how it started right and social welfare and all kinds of things so it enters it means it becomes responsible what's your assessment of how it has balanced sort of its goal of being an armed struggle organization and its role as government you know you see the transformation going on in Lebanon with Hezbollah over the past few years right Hezbollah was an armed struggle organization for three decades you know it's provided a lot of the the social services in southern Lebanon and now over the past few years it's gotten into government right and now you see it entrenched in government and it's you know the the disenchantment with Hezbollah it grows as a result because now you know who do you blame for garbage not being collected you know Hezbollah is as complicit as the rest of the government so talk to us really about this balance and what sort of legitimacy does Hamas the governor have today and given the really horrible situation in Russia and some of the indicators that we talked about earlier yeah yeah I mean I wouldn't even go as far as Hezbollah I was look I would look at the PLO and the PA I mean this this idea of national liberation movements the the experience of Hamas I should say specifically is not particular to Hamas it's an experience that we saw in the Palestinian front with the PLO before hummus right so the PLO emerges as this movement that's carrying out what it called a global revolutionary movement against the Israeli occupation and fast forward 30 years we see the PLO conceding on 78% of historic Palestine and entering into an authority a Palestinian Authority as sort of a form of self-governance so we have this national liberation movement becomes subsumed into structures of governance and structures of occupation that same that same trajectory is one that we can see in Hamas so Hamas as an Islamist movement that's dedicated to armed struggle that's dedicated to full liberation entering into the democratic process and becoming a government and if we if we step back what we see are two different national strategies one committed to diplomacy which is now the PA and one committed to armed struggle which is Hamas both of them have been given up their national trajectories and become confined in structures of governance under occupation the both of them have failed to sort of achieve their goal of liberation and have ended up becoming governing authorities so in that sense Hamas is experience is very similar to the pl o--'s but what's interesting is that there was resistance to that kind of trajectory from Hamas so your point about why did they not run elect in elections in the 90s but they did in the 2000s in the 90s Hamas was openly a and the Oslo Accords they did not believe that the Oslo Accords served the Palestinian national movement and they refused to give the Palestinian Authority any kind of legitimacy so they felt that they would not participate in elections that would legitimate the PA fast forward ten years and we come to the end of the Second Intifada Hamas as well as Palestinians broadly believed that the Oslo Accords failed they didn't produce the Palestinian state the negotiations were at a standstill and Israel had disengaged from the Gaza Strip created havoc in the West Bank and so Hamas is entry into the political process was premised on the notion that the Oslo Accords failed so that they would not legitimate the PA now there was a naive assumption there that they would be able to go into the PA and revolutionize the PA from within that they would go into the PA and turn the PA back into the PLO back into a sort of this national liberation movement before the 1980s but in reality what happens is Hamas comes into the PA and becomes confined by the PA because all the international stakeholders and definitely the Palestinian and Israeli stakeholders are interested in the PA it serves the purpose of maintaining the status quo and so Hamas becomes a liberation movement that's enshrined in systems of governance right and it starts referring to the VA as a Zionist outpost and that's part of the tension that they've had oh absolutely absolutely and so now we look at we look at what's happening in the Gaza Strip and we see a government that's ideologically still committed to resistance ideologically still committed to the notion of armed struggle there's still a leadership a Hamas leadership abroad that talks about resistance that talks about all of that but in reality the government has a public expenditure they have to deal with schools they have to deal with health care they have to deal with the roads and they have to think unlike how they did in the 90s if there is an escalation who's going to be blamed for it right so now they have to become a governing authority and they have to weigh up their National Liberation agenda against their governance agenda and it's interesting if you talk to Palestinians in Gaza there's a lot of opposition to Hamas as a governing authority and a lot of the anger that Palestinians have in Gaza is obviously towards the occupation but because the occupation is so distance it actually manifests itself against Hamas and so Hamas as the governing authority bears the brunt of that kind of anger from justifiably lehre period I mean yes and no I think I I think that Hamas is authoritarian in many ways just like the PA is authoritarian I mean there's this tendency to think of Hamas as this Islamist party that's well we haven't had elections 2006 in terms of the absence of elections but also in terms of the crackdown on freedom of expression crackdown on political organization any kind of authoritarian tendencies that sadly we see elsewhere in the Arab world is very much present in the Palestinian territories even without the state the authoritarianism exists so it happens in in the West Bank and it happens in in the Gaza Strip so there is of course justifiable resentment but at the same time Hamas is a government that's under blockade they have no access in terms of import and export they have no freedom of movement the idea that they would be able to govern responsibly or that they would be able to build infrastructure rebuild the Milosh homes do all of that under blockade is nonsensical they have no they have limited resources so even in things like health care and education they have to rely on UNRWA you know honor as you said 2/3 of the Palestinians in Gaza are refugees without honor what the the the Gaza Strip would collapse in terms of education health care that still might very soon and it's I mean so this this could to go to your point about Gaza being uninhabitable by 2020 Gaza is uninhabitable I mean you know we need to be aware of that while also saying that Gaza is an only catastrophe you know there's life there and there's beautiful life and there's cafes and restaurants and there's there's life but no one here would live in the Gaza Strip and accept that as the quality of life it's a process of dehumanization that happened over 12 years that makes Palestinians in Gaza accepts that this is now their reality it's not normal what's happening in Gaza is not normal and we see that in numbers I mean the number of people of Palestinians in Gaza who are leaving now you know to get out of the Gaza Strip you can never get out from Israel if you're a passing in it and guys say you have to go out to Rafa through Egypt it goes up to ten thousand dollars to get access to get out of fashion and if you did that equal treatment I mean something with Amira house who lived in Alessa for a while I mean always writes a lot for her arrest rightly the service of people who need medical attention in Israel it can't get it yes yeah I mean so the blockade on the Gaza Strip means that there are very strict conditions for who can enter and exit the Gaza Strip and whoever has medical conditions that needs treatment in the West Bank or elsewhere in Jordan they have to order in Israel I mean some of them ask for variety but that had that's our health care treatment in Israel those requirements are really really difficult to get and the majority of those permits are denied so the idea that there there's only the most extreme form of humanitarian and medical assistance is is needs to be demonstrated for access out of the Gaza Strip to be given right yeah and has it become sort of you know the joke that rather than tell somebody go to hell you say go to Reza yes right let's go back to the theme of Islamism so I'm fascinated by this notion of how it's a you know how an organization like Hamas becomes a nationalist movement with Islamist on their pinnings right you look at the Muslim Brotherhood is of course is about purifying was enough Society and only by purifying Muslim society will God look favorably on Muslim society right and we saw the experiment with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt over a 12 13 month period in which the treaty was about what I would refer to as Islamist tautomerization right you compare that with an AA something I know very well in Tunisia and I would describe it as another having gone through a if you will a secularization process right a political secularization process a secular democratizing if you will Hamas is not concerned with I mean talk about sort of you know the democratization because because it does see it you describe it in the book as an in liberal democracy you know how much of a democracy is it and how Islamists is a thing mean I know you referred to this earlier on unlike the Muslim Brotherhood there was no brothers concerned with Muslim society at large right like Jemaah Islamiyah from Pakistan and so on so when they talk about Muslim society they're talking about pan Muslim worlds okay paddies love Hamas is very focused on a very local issue has it become a nationalist movement with Islamist underpinnings how committed is it to the principles of democracy yeah I mean it's a very good question and it's one of the questions that I struggled with the most in the book because if there's a very clear tendency certainly among Fatah and the Palestinian leadership to dismiss Hamas as an Islamist movement so you know how much isn't really Palestinian but Hamas as part of the Muslim Brotherhood their goal is in Palestine their goal is the regional Caliphate so it doesn't it's not a nationalist movement it's it's difference and that is really destructive eventually in the way that it's manifested itself because it now enables politicians like President Abbas to put sanctions on the Gaza Strip as as a means of fighting Islamism and not not as a as a what what is actually political rivalry between the two but one of the arguments that I make in the book is that Hamas is very much a Palestinian nationalist movement from its inception it was created as a movement as I said before that would specifically focus on armed resistance against occupation for the liberation of historic Palestine so even though the movement is Islamist it's framing was always in the nation-state model right and this isn't particular to Hamas there's literature that's coming out everywhere that shows different Islamist movements as you said adapting to the nation-state model as the sort of the primary form of their political mobilization even if they have a philosophy of a broader Islamic world when the original charter establishes that God is its goal the messenger the Prophet Muhammad is the leader and the Quran is its constitution right but they opted for a more organic sort of Islamization process it's a slow one you know they do not go and try to implement Sharia overnight right in the same charter a few lines down they define themselves as a Palestinian nationalist movement and so the two things are coexisting and it's what scholar Olivier Roy which you know very well calls a form of Islam or nationalism so it is a nationalist movement but unlike the PLO that would get its ideology from this global revolutionary anti colonial liberation movements they're getting their ideology from the Islamists dictionary right so they're essentially the same political movement their movements that are calling for a full liberation for armed struggle for the right of return for Jerusalem as a capsule they're calling for all the core drivers of Palestinian nationalism but they're just doing that in an Islamist ideology and so in that sense I I've you the movement as an Islamist movement it's a nationalist movement so it's love to give it legitimacy Islam to give it ability to things that kind of ideology does two things first of all it builds up its power base I mean its roots is the Muslim Brotherhood it's it's its power base its constituents are people who go to its charities go to it schools have pays the cab do go to mosques where the preaching happens so it becomes a political mobilizer it's it's you know the opium of the masses this is what religion is so it allows it to develop that kind of power base so it's a tool religion is a tool for it right you know the Muslim Brotherhood means sorry first secondly for the Muslim Brotherhood the governance is a means toward an end right you know the end is the purification of Muslim society it is Islam izing everybody right I mean here it's quite different well yes and no because so it's it is a tool but it's not a cynical tool I mean they do believe they're the leaders that I spoke to do you believe it's not a facade they are religious they are pious I'm sure that you know I'm not going to be able to test their religious observance but but there is their ideology is one that they are committed to as it as an Islamist ideology so of course it's a tool but not in a cynical way I mean this is they are determined to Islamize society and you see it in Gaza I mean gas has a lot more conservative than the West Bank and so you see that kind of trickle in but the other reason why Islamism is important is because they believe that they're playing the long game right so for the PLO for example as a secular movement they are less able to withstand international pressure because they're their constituencies politics is now Hamas which stands pressure because they believe that they're playing a religious game a divine intervention game so they're able to withstand a lot more they're able to I mean Hamas still hasn't conceded on any of its core ideology including I mean so so defined for a billion so that's so including recognition of Israel thank you I mean they've recognized Evan but they don't recognize Israel right so you know it's it's it's it's diplomacy I mean they obviously recognize Israel implicitly but ideologically they still have not come out and said we recognize the State of Israel but has there been a change of toll over the past couple years absolutely I mean there's been a change of tone I traced that in my book since early since sort of midway through the Second Intifada Hamas realizes I think through it's it's this course and its leaders that Israel is here to stay and that armed struggle has to liberate the Palestinian territories not historic Palestine and it begins making shifts in terms of its statements that it recognizes 67 but refuses to recognize the State of Israel okay so talk about Isis as an entity I mean in that context right I mean about the how it fits within the narrative of statehood of Palestinian nationalism as an entity Reza you know and sort of we focus so much on Hamas when we talk about reservist as Reza yeah that's that's for me one of one of the most important interventions that I try to make in the book I think there's often a sense certainly in the Western world that Hamas and Gaza are you can conflate the two Hamas is Gaza and Gaza is exactly and the reality is I always tell people what do you think will happen if Hamas somehow miraculously doesn't exist tomorrow will the blockade be lifted and one of the arguments that I make in the book is that even if Hamas cease to exist tomorrow the blockade isn't going anywhere good so the blockade of the Gaza Strip is actually not a reaction to Hamas it's a reaction to the fact that the Gaza Strip has two million Palestinians the vast majority of whom are refugees the vast majority of whom want to come back to their homes that are now in Israel and if you trace the way that Israel has dealt with the Gaza Strip back to the 1940s and 1950s there were blockades there were extra judicial assassinations there were imprisonments there were forms of separation forms of pacification all the policies military assaults so all the policies that we see Israel carrying out on the Gaza Strip today ostensibly as self-defense against Hamas actually predates Hamas by decades by years by decades and so the reality is that the Gaza Strip has always been the the the core of Palestinian resistance even Fatah leadership emerges there right because of the because of what the Gaza Strip is because of its demography because of its population the Gaza Strip has always presented a problem for Israel and Israel has always tried to pacify it and so Hamas and this is the the main argument of the book is that Hamas is only a fig leaf that allows Israel to retroactively Li justify all these policies so now we see the blockade we see the separation of the Gaza Strip because of Hamas when in fact Israel separating the Gaza Strip to maintain a Jewish majority while it continues to hold on to the West Bank and so any kind of future liberation so away and and this is the work that I'm doing now with Crisis Group this idea that there's going to be a two-state solution is a failed idea because we don't even know what the Palestinian state will look like the Palestinian state has already been bifurcated right there's already been that division and that division is one that the power authority in the West Bank explicitly accepts when they put sanctions on the Gaza Strip the reality is that we're already as Palestinians living in a one-state reality and that one-state reality has different pockets of Palestinians so do we know what the casino plan is that in a Palestinian state can exist in Gaza right and then you know the West Bank annexation would start and you'll have the Canton's and the West Bank an education has been completed if that annexation would start annexation is their annexation has formal annexation even formal annexation has had I mean now certainly there's de facto annexation and since 2015 there's been de jure annexation under the Chekhov's under Israel's Minister Minister of Justice there have the Knesset has passed several pieces of legislation that apply Israeli law in the settlement area sees the religion state law 2018 also reinforces all right so annexation has happened this idea that Palestinians will have a state is really a different play on notions of autonomy so Palestinians will be given a state you know it'll be a state - they will have all the privileges of a state and that's an old story right we had seconds Eska here last year preventing Palestine and the notion of autonomy being sort of the state - goes back to Camp David not locally and it's returning now we see it in the way that Netanyahu talks not about the state by the state - they talk about Palestinians having a state in the Gaza Strip so they very they're given symbols of sovereignty but they're not given an illusion of a state right and and the separation of the Gaza Strip is fundamental for that for that call right so Israel on this side and then Dafa of course and Egypt on that side Egypt for the longest time for more than three decades was the the address for any kind of ceasefire and any kind of dealings between Hamas and Fatah and EPL and NDP and with Israel things have changed and certainly because of Hamas as a relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood things have shifted also with Iran in 2011 fundings dried up because Hamas sided with the cedar Devils things are far more difficult for Iran today I mean you know protesters in Iran are saying no Gaza no Lebanon no Iraq you know we want money to be spent on us and Qatar has also been playing an important role in all of this of course you know it backs the Muslim Brotherhood it has backed Hamas it has given more than a billion dollars over the past few years to pay for salaries and so on to what extent is it as entangled in a regional conflict you know I mean how do the Iranians perhaps less so the Egyptians I mean that's that's a different kind of situation the Qataris and others may be looking at and looking at a Tomas in particular with a yes so the entanglement in regional politics isn't it it's a Palestine story right there their regional politics are manifesting themselves in the West Bank as well with with without bath sand and his cautery around him but definitely in Gaza and all these different players have been around I mean much more so in Gaza all these players had a very different yes absolutely they have very different sort of roles to play so their role so just to sort of quickly go through what their roles are Egypt their role is to mediate so they way they mediate alongside the UN whenever the escalation they step in and they try to achieve a ceasefire between the Palestinian factions in Gaza and Israel because Israel doesn't negotiate directly with Hamas but Egypt is interested in that because of the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula and Israel and Egypt have under CC now have a very strong security cordon I mean their relationship now is the strongest it's ever been between Egypt and Israel so they are essentially two faces of the same coin in terms of what is happening in the Gaza Strip they're both interested in maintaining Hamas in power they're both interested in stabilizing Hamas and making sure that the Gaza Strip remains a separate entity to the rest of the Palestinians part is the state that essentially funds this project so it's fund the humanity infrastructure intervention in the Gaza Strip so they provide fuel they provide funds they allow the Gaza Strip to not collapse into a humanitarian catastrophe because that would make the blockade unsustainable now what's interesting is the mix between Saudi Arabia and Iran so Hamas for the longest time has played both they from their early days have wanted to not be entangled in regional politics and have wanted to position themselves as neutral and increasingly over the recent sort of in the early 2000s we see Saudi Arabia less and less interested in any kind of engagement with Hamas and that flips over in 2011 when Saudi obviously takes a very strong stance against Islamist parties and partially that explains their blockade of Qatar as well and at the same time Hamas comes out against Bashar al Assad which results in Hamas leadership being expelled out of Syria what happens is that Iran Iranian funding to Hamas drops almost immediately its relationship with Hezbollah stops and a lot of that Iranian money goes to Islamic Jihad so back to what we were talking about in terms of the dynamic after 2011 the tensions between Hamas and Islamic she had escalated because it's not make she has started getting all these arms and all these funds and Hamas wasn't getting anything which led to some tensions but also greater tactical maneuvering and sort of this idea that they would strategize together and so the reality today is that Hamas is very much positioning itself as Iranian funded but Palestinian focused so unlike Islamic we have that's getting Iranian money and often more susceptible to Iranian pressure to carry out operations against Israel Hamas gets Iranian funding but is more able to maintain that distance and position itself not necessarily as an active proxy to Iran but it's very much funded in terms of its military from Iran in terms of its governance from Qatar and it in terms of its mediation from from Egypt and of course Turkey I mean Turkey hosts a lot of Hamas leadership they play a very big role in funding in the Gaza Strip and they position themselves often as the Islamists big brother right because their this vision of democracy Islamist democracy right so there's so much talk about that you wanna tell it to the audience but maybe just one last thing that you can comment on and that's the strategy of well it's not if we can talk about sort of the the relationship Palestinian Palestinian okay not Palestinian Israeli and what Hamas has fun I mean you know you said you say in the book the violence Hamas unleashed on other Palestinians severely compromised the Palestinian struggle right in fact Hamas made the choice that forcefully safeguarding its democratic right to govern was a lesser violation that conceding to fatass authoritarianism Palestinians continued to suffer the implications of that decision to this day so I'd like you two to deal with this but to deal with this perhaps from a larger context you know we're have been some of the the the big I don't want to even say failures but perhaps in justices you know carried on by by Hamas you know how this has an impact perhaps on Palestinian community the idea of a nation-state in the future and perhaps in dealing with this you can also comment because you do have a very nuanced and clever way of addressing the question of Hamas being labeled as a terror organization organization surveys too divisive the last question with violence as the theme you know and then how do you deal with all of those dimensions of its reign so the failures of Hamas are also the failures of Fatah in the sense that both organizations believe that they're now engaged in a zero-sum game the Fatah believes that it is protecting the Palestinian national struggle by remaining committed to the notion of the two-state solution and diplomacy and Hamas believes that they're protecting the Palestinian struggle by refusing diplomacy and refusing the two-state solution and accepting or remaining dedicated to armed struggle the reality is that both national strategies have failed and both of them have become governing authorities the PLO doesn't exist as an institution that is representative and that is focused on the goal of liberation so what we have now is factional politics right so we have competition between Fatah and Hamas for very little stakes we're not talking about very little stakes right and the the the sort of by focusing specifically on Hamas I mean it's an accusation that I give for Fatah but because I'm working on Hamas I view it through the prism of violence and I think that Hamas has been unable to really understand how ineffective armed struggle is when you're dealing with a fool like Israel not just in terms of obviously the vast discrepancy in military I mean that happens in other asymmetric warfare you could have anti-colonial movements that get gains but just in terms of the ability of Israel to position Hamas as a terrorist organization to win the narrative internationally and to really rather than recoil from the violence and relinquish the territories actually expand their hold and expand their intrusion expand their occupation as a conflict in you know misery on civilians right who are used as pawns as you imagine by both Israel and Hamas absolutely and so that violence I think that Hamas the armed struggle that Hamas does against Israel I think did something to the Palestinian national fabric as well it's it created it positioned Fatah as the enemy because in this liberation struggle everything is black and white there's no gray and so by Fatah becoming the other becoming an extension of the occupation they become a legitimate target for that violence reduces a notion of the other within the Palestinian and so I again classical white and rule I mean Israel has been so successful at dividing the Palestinians and creating them as to that I now hit Hamas in a second I mean earlier you were saying you know that that it's not tried to sort of you know blame Israel for the creation of creation you're not indication but in but today it is I mean isn't Hamas I mean the PA and Hamas are also largely they have the primary responsibility in the sense that any kind of reconciliation now if they put the national project above their factional interests they would be able to reconcile so they have primary responsibility but Israel plays a hugely destructive role in in that kind of division right any kind of reconciliation agreement that has happened over the course of the past ten years has been undermined by Israel so even when Palestinians do get to the point of reconciliation there has been an effort under - but just on the point on on terrorism and violence I mean the issue that you know Hamas itself in its publications talks about creating terror in Israel so they talk about the fact that they're targeting civilians they talk about that they openly admit it but what they refuse is to be recognized as a terrorist organization and that discrepancy is because the label of terrorism has been used mostly by the US but certainly by Israel - to justify interventions to justify hugely destructive wars under the label of terrorism and the question is and that's the question I raised in the book is if we're looking at civilian deaths as a form of terrorism and we label Hamas a terrorist organization Israel is the biggest source of civilian deaths in Israel Palestine today why is that not state terrorism if we're actually talking about terrorism why is Israel's army seen as a form of self-defense and Hamas is army seen as a terrorist organization the idea that terrorism is limited to sub state actors has justified Israel's occupation it's justified American imperialism it's justified what's happening in Iraq what's happening in Yemen what's happening elsewhere in the region so it's this notion that the way that the label of terrorism is manipulated and that organizations like Hamas are are sort of against millions brilliant brilliant brilliant I mean I can't thank you questions and as always I'll ask you to make it very brief make it one question and make sure it has a question mark so we'll start with the woman over here okay got it can we take two questions at a time sure okay okay my name is Loomis and mater said Jordan University Center for Strategic Studies what do you see what do you see the short term medium term long term scenario for Gaza and Hamas okay great fantastic let's take another question the gentleman over there so two from this side and then the next round we'll take two from that side and my name is mo Proctor Besh and the fellow here Columbia hi Luke hi I'm just I just want to entertain the subject one of the main points you mentioned about look about Bahamas being a local organization and it's not like the Islamic Brotherhood and I just wanna um refer that or how you reconcile that with the events in Libya and being Libyan enough I'm familiar with what happened with Hamas Libya being involved in this Lodge of the government of Libya in 2011 and the rest of some of their members in Libya in 2014 the ongoing court the rest of some of them in 2019 as well so I'm just wondering would that really challenge your theory of being localized you know a group thank you yeah yeah so both excellent questions so thank you so in terms of future scenarios for Gaza I see the the way I interpret the Gaza Strip now with a great much of return I think that the great much of return which I'm sure most of the people in the audience are aware of but this is a civil society form of mobilization that began last March that was calling for return so this was calling a popular mobilization calling for return this is a break from the politics that has dominated Israel Palestine for a few years it's popular in the sense that you know there's obviously pockets of popular mobilization happening all over Palestine and regionally but it's it's it's one of the most tenacious one of the most widespread one of the biggest it's it's still ongoing and it's talking about return so it's a it's taking the Palestinian narrative away from 67 and statehood and back to 1948 and return which is a sort of which is mapping this shift that's happening in the Palestinian struggle away from the two-state solution away from that kind of negotiations and land swaps and settlements and back towards the idea of a quality full liberation collective and individual rights equality with within the single state right so the great march of return is for me an indicator of the trends that are beginning to happen in in the Gaza Strip specifically but broader in the Palestinian community now what how is that scenario going to unfold in the short term it's an ugly scenario and we see the that we see what happens when Palestinians mobilize for rights Israel uses disproportionate lethal force on Palestinian civilians so they're dealing with an occupier that has no qualms using open light fire on civilian protesters but we're also dealing with affections that are authoritarian so Hamas has in many ways co-opted that great march of return as has the Palestinian Authority co-opted other forms of popular mobilization so in the short term I think it's an uphill battle I think it's a battle where Palestinian mobilization is going to create more bloodshed and going to create more force against Palestinians in the long term this is a necessary redirection and and you know we're living at a time now globally where there are struggles between populism and progress of progressive forces and Palestine is very much on the progressive France not just regionally but also internationally regionally with their revolutions and internationally with other with other forms of struggle for for for rights is progressive our progressive forces going to win over populist forces who knows I mean this is a global question it's not a question of Palestine but in Palestine I see that battle unfolding I think that what we're going to see now is a shift of among Palestinians within the occupied territories within Israel calling for full equality calling for rights calling for the dismantlement of an apartheid regime and so we're going to see I think forces that are very similar to the forces that happened in South Africa starting to happen in in Israel Palestine being led by Palestinians on the ground so it's it's it's sorry good I'm just going to see I don't want to overplay and overestimate what that is but that's the way I see some of the some of the things that are beginning to happen on the ground that's how I'm reading just Palestinians in historic Palestine but also Palestinians and the Diaspora are beginning to choose especially amongst the youth right especially amongst the youth and you know on this stage the last time I was here was with Adi and Penny Johnson and Raja with his book about you know the walk and I'm alone the 50th anniversary of the occupation and how coming across a Palestinian flagpole meant so much was such a big deal then and today it may be second day right I mean you know to the question of rights of economic rights of political rights of social rights you know that is becoming far more important absolutely but you know one of the most interesting things is you talk to Palestinians young Palestinians in the West Bank and they say why would we want to stay that's going to be as authoritarian as other states in the region yeah well why do we want that state actually we want a stage where there's social justice or there's no patriarchy where there's a you know full equality where their civic freedom why are we seeking better that the period you know it's interesting it started also at the time of you know our basses and fears obsession with you and recognition of as a state right I mean you started hearing you know hand over the keys you know we don't want you to meet this day we don't want this right absolutely sorry I've done it and so in terms of the second question it's actually a it's a very difficult question because it's not only in Libya it's also in Egypt it's also elsewhere you know when when Morsi came to power Hamas it's like Hamas got high you know they believe that this is this is this is where finally their dream of Islamist parties coming to power is going to vindicate everything that they've been talking about there were more portraits of Morsi in Gaza than anywhere else that I've seen and there was this real belief that finally Islamism is resurging now I just to sort of up a point I didn't say Hamas was local it is local in the sense but I said it was nationalist in the sense that it was focused on the creation of a Palestinian States and so in in in the way that they are present in Libya and the way that they are present in Egypt I think that doesn't diminish from the fact that they're still in nationalist movement that's committed to Palestinian statehood I think there are expressions of solidarity with Islamist movements elsewhere and I think that derives from their philosophy as a Muslim Brotherhood but in terms of their political platform in their terms of their political agenda it still focused on building a Palestine and Islamic Palestine but still focused on Palestine okay so let's use the model of those two questions being very specific and to the point so the those two hands of the two gentlemen there are the first two hands I so and then in the next round I'm going to go to you you and you you direction on that to that okay am i okay yeah sahadev a public health system person just to get into the questions before I'm so fine cuts me well so it's not make me cut you some facts on the ground there is something called calorimeter I mean food that gets into Gaza is weighed by the gram by or even by the Calvary less than the gram there is a fuel meter there is a dollar meter and that that kind of thing will we can to accept it with time and they have to live with it I was on the Underground 2013 their original Gaza not the refugee people were happier with the governance municipality of Hamas than the PA before for many different reasons probably you know it better than me now to to the issue of that is an Islamist Hamas okay born from Islamic Brotherhood which is an religious move okay now we're seeing the judaization of the politics of the State of Israel how does that compare that's branch one of the question now when they took over militarily let's say in 2006 if they declared a state they're a Palestinian state which will be more credible than the Algiers 88 because they have the population they have the ground they have the governance they have their own borders was this discussed anywhere the last part it is because it went so far so this is a very crucial one okay the relationship with the Islamic Brotherhood of the creation 1928 30 40 whatever it is whatever conspiracies around it is it's British made or whatever is made okay is this the short version of debunking Islamic Brotherhood in a shorter period of time okay great thank you is so the gentlemen go ahead please okay thank you very much for the presentation I'm sure by the way I'm a PhD student you mentioned at the start that in the research for your book that you tried to steer away from sort of Western sources on Hamas and use a lot of interviews and internal documents but over the course of the presentation or discussion and I imagine because of the questions were asked and the topics that were covered a lot of the analysis seemed to be similar sort of the way that Hamas has been discussed by fairly big sort of academics of Hamas uh Sean Michelle or Michelle and Saleh of Sarah Roy these sorts of people and using sort of very or referencing very sort of traditional ways of viewing the organization through social movement theory or canned moderation I have offices and these sorts of things and I was wondering from using the sources that you did whether there's any sort of weaknesses in the analysis of that sort of mainstream Western academic analysis on Hamas you maybe could highlight it's great question yeah yeah so in terms of the fair I mean I'll go through through them relatively briefly in terms of the Judah's ation of Israel I mean Azrael has always been the the Jewish homeland right or seen as the as the homeland for the Jews so by default Israel is also an autocracy and like any kind of Islamist movement and I think the the one of the frustrations that Palestinians have is that and not just Palestinians but certainly people in the region have is that Islamist movements are seen as inherently autocratic inherently violent inherently unaccepted to the West but Jewish political parties are seen as a necessary I mean there's it's as seen as a necessity for most Western policymakers to maintain Israel as a Jewish state and so there's a duplicity there why is a kind of religious policymaking okay when it's happening in in in Israel which defines itself defines its constitution it doesn't have a constitution it's basic law as a country where only Jews can exercise self-determination and that kind of ability to understand the need for religious policing or religious politics is not applied in the same openness or in the same understanding with Islamist movement so there's a duplicity there for all the reasons that we know historically Palestinian state in Gaza I mean this would have been a non-starter for Hamas it's the same reason why they wouldn't recognize or accept the partition I mean that's why they don't recognize Israel because they refuse to accept the partition of the land of historic Palestine for them that's wealth and it has to be it's an Islamic endowment that has to be protected in perpetuity or in perpetuity so for them any kind of actual partition so by declaring a border around the Gaza Strip is ideologically out of sync with their own charter but also strategically that doesn't make sense because Gaza isn't a state they don't have access they don't have control over their borders they have control over a captive a captive population that exists under Israeli occupation I mean Gaza isn't liberated Gaza still under occupation I don't think we should think of Gaza as a strip of land that's been liberated they have no control in Gaza there the you don't have your see actually there's an open naval blockade on the Gaza Strip and the blockade happened on the Gaza Strip as I said before years before Hamas came to power it was only tightened after Hamas took over power so this idea that the Gaza Strip is liberated is I didn't quite get your third point about debunking the Muslim Brotherhood yeah I mean in some ways but I think the Islamic movements in the region are facing their own challenges as Assaf one knows in different countries in different ways I think that there's you know there was a resurgence of Islamism in the 1980s and I think now we're in a wave where because of the revolutions that are happening because of the way that the deep state has reacted to Islamic movements because of their failure to failure it's a failure to really engage with the democratic process I think we're witnessing the decline of Islamism in the region and the rise of a lot of economic factors for mobilization a lot of calls for for secular democracy a lot of calls for a different form of political engagement so I think that Islamic and not just for Hamas but generally is declining in terms of in terms of the question on the the focus on Hamas the sources as versus Western texts I mean it's a really it's a really good question I I sort of disagree that sources like Michelle for example or gunning or others have viewed Hamas in the same way I view them there's a lot of emphasis at least in framing and understanding Hamas from these Israeli scholars and Western scholars that the movement is seen primarily as a terrorist organization and then the kind of engagement with politics and engagement with different factors of the movement comes up but the primary the the premise is more often than not of the movement as a terrorist organization with the exception of scholars like Sarah Roy or Beverly Milton Edwards they are scholars I think who have done a tremendous job in terms of understanding Hamas and we think Hamas and its center of gravity so I think that there's this notion I mean if you go through my book a lot of what I talk about isn't covered in in the other scholarship in terms of Hamas isn't thinking towards processes of reconciliation with Fatah Hamas is on thinking in terms of why they would justify engagement with the political parties a different sort of internal politics that are not covered to the same extent as others so I think that's where the depth of the archive was able to take me but I don't think apart from sort of bringing in the notion back to a center of gravity explaining why Hamas justifies its violence and how I think a lot of the way that I understand Hamas does overlap with some of these scholars that I've spoken about it great so I want to make sure I go to the people who yes you had your hand up before you had your hand before and you had your hand of course I'll take the three of you and then in the next round you and you and I think that'll be the last round so so my name is Feroz Nasir and I would like to thank you very much for the talk I felt it's realistic coming from the grounds and it has many truths in it but I felt it's like an opening remark sometimes so read the book yeah for sure and at some times we really build on truths on facts to try to reach a certain solution so in 1948 Israel took part of Palestine in 1967 they took all of Palestine in 1994 we have the beefs treaty and now there is a talk that I can see that is coming from you as a Palestinian should be asking about their rights and maybe there is no two-state solutions so yes you are really building on the facts yes you are really building on truth but it's like an introduction to a new approach a new solution my message is what I really want to take to people from around the world about the palestinian-israeli conflict shall I talk about rights shall I talk about two-state solutions what is your real narrative or real approach to this based on the current global agreements and global resolutions because my worry if we approach a new opening or a new conclusion we might end up with something that did not like like the Gaza situation or like the Biello situation thank you okay to be fair well the next question asks I mean to you were responding to a question this is not the premise of the book you know the book is not about that and I think this was in response to a question and I think it is more a reflection of what is the narrative that is emerging today yeah me I think it's very difficult for you or for me or for anybody here to judge whether it's a good night very bad narrative right but it is the night if that's emerging today I think increasingly the two-state solution is becoming a myth and increasingly people any in Palestine and in Israel are very focused on their rights see any Ana when I go tomorrow I'm dr. Ramallah for example you know when you talk to people they don't send their rights they're concerned with the rights much more than they are with the idea of a nation so that's just a a descriptive statement I think you're not describing it as such but then I'll let you said all of this I'll still let you answer it but let's see the next question you mentioned earlier that many believe that Israel started Hamas for the purpose of divide and conquer can you elaborate on that especially with last week's attack on the Islamic Jihad in Gaza where Israel specifically said that they will not attack Hamas okay thank you and then it was this a little bigger yeah okay thank you for being here I'm wondering what you think of the BDS movement and also how is that movement perceived within the Gaza Strip amongst the people and within the the government and how is it viewed in Israel and in the West Bank very simple easy question that you have you have 30 seconds to answer that's one pirate and all of these questions are delightful so in terms of your question I mean I think it's a brilliant question and I think it's it's one that Palestinians are struggling with very much and you should read the next report that I'm writing for a crisis group so as Safwan said a lot of what I said about this shift to rights is descriptive it's sort of irrelevant of what I think are what you think it's what's happening it's there's a greater younger generation that is talking about rights I mean I've had interviews where people tell me I don't care if there's a Palestinian flag I want to be able to go to Haifa it's as simple as that right now when you when you actually talk about what this means with policymakers with politicians with Hamas with feta with PLO members it becomes much more frightening and much more complex because if you start talking about rights what happens to the UN resolutions that we have what happens to two for two what happens to three three eight what happens to the right of return what happens to the national identity is a shift to right and move away from national identity are we talking about individual rights or are we talking about collective rights are we exercising our right to self-determination in a single land and if we are what does that mean about the Jewish counterpart are they exercising their right as Israelis or are they exercising their right as Jews and what does that mean in terms of the law of return on the rider these questions are immense and in terms of the Palestinian leadership we're nowhere near beginning to end ask these questions in the right way now if you talk to any kind of politician sitting in power now first of all they're illegitimate but second of all they they hold on to the two-state solution because for them this is the it justifies their entire existence and it's but it just was the job maybe the self-employed but also because there's a fear of acknowledging that the twisted solution will never happen and so what does that mean does that mean that the past 25 years have been a failure and if they have been a failure how do we emerge from that in a way that doesn't expose a smooth more failure if we start thinking about individual rights and we're seeking right we can all become like Palestinian citizens of Israel so second-class citizens no national identity there can be another 1948 where there's more ethnic cleansing these are big questions I agree with you I don't have the answers I don't think people are able to sort of think about them yet in the right way on the political leadership but let me tell you there's so much interesting work happening on the ground there's so much interesting work happening in civil society around these organization these questions you know what's the difference between dealing with Israel as an apartheid state and dealing with Israel as a settler colonial state what does that mean in terms of the body of law that we're using can we use the law of occupation or they use use the law of international humanitarian law how these questions are happening so the shift the phase away from the two-state solution is happening whether we like it or not because of the failure to achieve a Palestinian state I think the biggest issue we have now as Palestinians is to make sure that our political project is able to harness that shift in a way that's productive them in life but can I just very quickly add I mean you're so incredibly articulate I mean it's just amazing I'm happy I mean you know the way that your mind works and the way that you argue so cogently I'm I'm in awe you know really really guys fantastic yeah it's wonderful to be on stage with you thought I we've never done this business and yeah it's really it's just I feel privileged you know the rights narrative has also been what has mobilized people around the world including including many American and European Jews around the Palestinian struggle it's the argument of universal human rights which resonates in a far more easily with people you know people sort of can connect can candle eight to that far more than they can to political ideas of nationalism and the nation-state and so on and so forth suggests a effort not to what you said yeah so I'm going to come to your quad Leena your question later I'm going because it relates to BTS relates to that because of I think because of the failure of the political institution and the political leadership to put a national vision and to sort of harness this shift to rights what happens is that BDS has become the only platform that unites Palestinians and it's become even though it's a tactic it's now become an oversize thrust that mobilizes Palestinians in a certain direction calling for opposition to two Israeli Apartheid and so in that sense BDS is both a great success in a great failure it's a success if you look at it as a tool in the sense that it is creating avenues for solidarity it's mobilizing people it's it hasn't had an actual impact on Israel economically it has had an impact on Israel in terms of the narrative and in terms of raising awareness but as a it's been a failure in the sense that it can never be a political project right it's it's it's not that it's a tool to bring pressure to bear on Israel and because there's no leadership it's become now synonymous with a Palestinian political project it's become synonymous with if you're an app Allison Ian's sitting in Chicago now the only way you can really serve the struggle is by joining BDS exactly there's no other way full exercise right and that's become a problem I mean I say instead in some ways BDS is is a powerful tactic that should be harnessed and encouraged but it shouldn't be the be-all and end-all and so how do these different constituencies deal with it first of all BDS the call for BDS is a solidarity call it doesn't apply to Palestinians inside it's meant to be a call for allies abroad internationally who have the privilege to boycott divest or sanction Israel who have the privilege and the ability so it's not for Palestinians if you're living under under Israeli occupation you can't boycott occupation you have you have to go through the occupation to live your life and so it's only for them but there are unfortunately in the West Bank so I'll take that in the West Bank there has been an inability to divest from Israel I mean the Israel economy dominates the West Bank so a you know I shop in the West Bank now old everything I buy is Israeli there's no there there are no Palestinian thought you can't you can't move away from Israel again the feel how these nozzles of West bankers work in settlements there's a hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians who cross every day to work in settlements or in Israel right so the kind of the economic disengagement or not me or being able to boycott Israel it's it's just impossible with answer that there's obviously a lot of support for BDS but the implementation of BDS inside is is not possible and the Israelis I mean Israel Z is these medias as an existential threat I think that obviously overstates the impact that BDS has but it also it's a fear I think that the Israeli State has and they put millions of dollars behind fighting BDS and in lawsuits everywhere in the world it's a sphere that BDS is calling for three things right it's calling for freedom equality and justice so it's calling for freedom from occupational qualification justice which is the right of return essentially it's calling for the pillars of Palestinian nationalism those cannot be addressed as long as Israel maintains Jewish supremacy on this land so it goes to the heart of the Zionist project and so for Israel the shift to BDS is one that's troubling even if it hasn't had any kind of economic impact in the final question so in terms of divisions yes I mean Israel is still very much playing divide and rule so in in in the 80s I when Hamas became Hamas Israel very actively very quickly switched away from this sort of implicit support and giving licenses to leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to open charities or open mosques or whatever it is and very quickly became acrimonious with Hamas so there was a very rapid confrontation but between Hamas and Fatah it it encouraged competition so it's encouraged division and that has manifested itself today's as I said any kind of unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah is undermined actively by Israel the most important way it does that is by lobbying for a continuation by the EU and by the US for a no-contact policy with Hamas which means that whenever Hamas comes into a Palestinian unity government Israel then lobbies the EU counterparts to make sure that they do not engage with that Palestinian government so it removes the incentive for Fatah to enter into a unity government with with Hamas which maintains that kind of division but now it's interesting in the Gaza Strip because by focusing on Islamic Jihad it's creating that division in Gaza but but it's also positioning Hamas as the responsible counterpart so now they can deal with Hamas they can go into ceasefire discussions with Hamas and maintain Islamic she had a zest boiler and so it's all these sort of divisive tactics I mean if you look at it it's essentially I mean this is colonialism 101 right you create a divide and rule but also you create warlords that manage okay the sort of urban enclaves under under your rule and it's very much the case now okay the final two questions and then I promise you that I will hang out for a bit sure the reception in the garden you can ask him questions individually but you had you up and you had your hand up so we'll do the two of you thank you for the nice presentation my name is Mohammed my question is how do you see the economic future of Gaza within twenty thirty years from now thank you my name is Satya bum I was born in Jordan to Palestinian refugees so I'm pretty much invested in this but um what I want to ask is simple and probably I was for a question would the abandonment of factions in Palestine be anywhere in the cards for us at any point in a sense that we would create one movement one united front where we would fight the same struggle so based on your experience on the grassroots level is that possible thank you so in terms of the economic future of gas I mean there's no economic future and as long as gases under blockade because Gaza doesn't have a self-sufficient economy as I said it is sustained by party intervention and by cutting money by World Bank projects by I you know development project so Gaza has no economy I mean it has a small economy but it's it's not a self-sustaining economy and it can't be as long as Gaza doesn't have ability to control imports and exports so in 20 or 30 years I think if the Gaza Strip is still what the Gaza Strip is today I think what you will see is essentially a lot more emigration probably of the type we see which isn't through Rafa but through the see a lot more deaths trying to get out of the Gaza Strip certainly a lot more escalations I mean I don't like saying that this is not sustainable because we've been saying the occupation isn't sustainable and you know so it is sustainable I think it's sustainable in very ugly ways but as an economy in 20 to 30 years the only way there can be an economy is if the blockade is lifted the abandonment of factions I mean it is wishful thinking and we're not wishful thinking in the sense that it will never happen it's wishful thinking the sense that you know someone like me would wish for it as well but so here's a problem the factions have actually lost a lot of their domestic support so if you talk to young Palestinian so a university and and student politics in Palestine is a very good indicator of where people are at most of the students actually do not support the factions ideologically anymore but all of the students almost vote Hamas or Fatah and the reason for that is because this is how you secure employment this is how you secure jobs this is how you secure welfare for your family so these factions have a very strong hold on on people but that for me is a sign of hope because there's no more ideological affiliation with the factions it's clear that the factions have failed and it's clear that the factions are illegitimate but what will turn this popular mobilization away is probably the same factors that we seen in Lebanon that we see in Tunis that we see elsewhere which is economic delays right those young people even with feta Hamas affiliations are still not going to get the jobs they want they're still going to live under occupation they're still going to have family members imprisoned or killed so at some point that will break when or how is unclear but I have I I very much see the same trends that are happening elsewhere in the region happening there that you know you've often hear that the next Intifada will be an aunty father against the authority absolutely yeah as it must yeah yeah as it must be yes it must be but part of the problem come on is that the PA has managed to stifle civil society you know remember the First Intifada civil society took care of things everything you know from garbage collection to organizing all it became sort of de facto local government for civil society today and I'm on the board of a couple of civil society organizations we're constantly strangled by the Palestinian Authority we'll visit a couple of them tomorrow tari any I know I'm a little bit biased because you're a friend but shall I say this is objectively as I think I can you're amazing you're brilliant I mean not only does your mind work brilliantly you're betting thank spirit very kind thank you for having me

Channel: CGCAmman

Views: 2,881

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Id: _DgUHtQC_4k

Length: 93min 51sec (5631 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 16 2020