A Secular Palestinian Nationalism?

The early years of Palestinian identity formation coincided with a number of historical events and developments that greatly influenced the type of nationalism adopted by the Palestinian nationalist movements. In the aftermath of World War II, a decades long period of decolonization began.Footnote ⁶ This period also saw the beginning of the Cold War, which in turn provided many nationalist movements fighting for independence — including the Palestinians — with a Marxist, anti-Western, and secular ideology (see Rubinstein Reference Rubinstein1990, 78 ff.). In the Arab world, these developments and ideological currents manifested themselves as a distinct political project, commonly referred to as pan-Arabism. In brief, pan-Arabists claimed that only by uniting under one secular and progressive nation could the Arabs hope to escape their current state of backwardness and modernize, and only then could they hope to defeat Israel and liberate Palestine (Baumgarten Reference Baumgarten2005, 27). The Palestinian dimension of pan-Arabism prompted many Palestinian nationalists to adopt this secular pan-Arab ideology, often interspersed with different degrees of leftism and revolutionary ideals (Khalidi Reference Khalidi2010, 181; Rubin Reference Rubin1994, 8–9).

When the Arab League established the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, it was naturally closely associated with pan-Arabism and the more powerful Arab leaders (Cobban Reference Cobban1984, 28–29; Hamid Reference Hamid1975, 93–94; ch. 1 in Rubin Reference Rubin1994). However, after the Arab states lost to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967, both the defeated regimes and pan-Arabism lost a great deal of credibility (Khalidi Reference Mishal and Sela2010, 193).Footnote ⁷ The outcome of the war demonstrated to the PLO that Arab patronage would be insufficient to liberate Palestine. The PLO therefore freed itself from such direct sponsorship and developed into an independent Palestinian organization (Hamid Reference Hamid1975, 98). From then until the first intifada (1987),Footnote ⁸ Palestinian politics became synonymous with the PLO (Hilal Reference Hilal2010; Malki Reference Malki2006; Muslih Reference Muslih1990, 4). Note, however, that while pan-Arabism lost support among the Palestinian factions in the PLO, secular, revolutionary, and anti-Western ideals remained influential. As a result of their ideological roots, all the 10 factions currently in the PLO are allegedly secular.Footnote ⁹

Despite their proclaimed allegiance to secularist ideals, most of the Palestinian factions are said to lack ideological depth (Sayigh Reference Sayigh1997, 56). This can in part be attributed to the unresolved nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the aforementioned strategic issues of how Palestine should be liberated, how much to liberate, and by whom have been more important than the nature of the future Palestinian state. It is argued here that the saliency of these strategic issues have worked to confuse ideology and strategy as sources of legitimacy and popularity in Palestinian politics. For example, while Palestinians who joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine might have supported the establishment of a progressive, secular, pan-Arab nation-state, it is assumed that most did so because of the goals and strategic positions of the movement, i.e., complete liberation of Palestine through armed struggle (Cubert Reference Cubert1997).Footnote ¹⁰ Conversely, Palestinians who support Fatah do so because of its pragmatism and promise to achieve some liberty for Palestinians after more than 60 years, not necessarily because of Fatah's alleged revolutionary ideals and secularist nationalism.

Two additional and inter-linked factors have further added to this ideological shallowness: interference from regional and international actors (Hilal Reference Hilal2010); and the long exile of the PLO leadership (Jamal Reference Jamal2005, 2). The exile of the PLO leadership forced its factions into dependency relationships with different countries, prompting them to modify their ideological and strategic positions so as not to alienate their patrons (see e.g., Golan Reference Golan1980). This exile also led to a marked distance between the different Palestinian communities — most importantly between those inside the occupied territories and the Palestinian diaspora — which further complicated the formation of a coherent ideological framework (Hilal Reference Hilal1993). In sum, organized Palestinian politics for long operated under circumstances which inhibited ideological deliberations regarding questions of religiosity and secularism. The secular aspect of the PLO factions' nationalist projects is thus considered to be largely a by-product of the ideological climate dictated by the Cold War.

The “Rise” of Religion in Palestinian Nationalism

Even if the overwhelming majority of Palestinians are Muslims, the above indicates that historically Islam was neither used as a tool to mobilize Palestinians, nor as a marker for Palestinian identity.Footnote ¹¹ On the political level, the obvious reason for this is that the secular PLO led by Fatah has traditionally been the hegemon in Palestinian politics. In addition to the previously mentioned reasons for the lack of ideological depth among the Palestinian liberation movements, it should be noted that the PLO has never held popular elections to its different bodies, including its quasi-parliament and highest body, the Palestine National Council (Muslih Reference Muslih1990, 5). In lieu of elections and with opinion polls carried out only rarely and infrequently, the constituent organizations of the PLO have had no reliable way of knowing whether their ideologies and national projects indeed resonated with popular opinion (Hroub Reference Hroub and Khaled2010, 168; Shadid and Seltzer Reference Shadid and Seltzer1988a, 23–24).Footnote ¹²

In addition, the main Islamist organization in the occupied territories, the Muslim Brotherhood, stayed apolitical until the late 1980s. The Brotherhood maintained that the re-Islamization of Palestine was a prerequisite for liberation, and consequently occupied itself with religious and social activism rather than politics (Hroub Reference Hroub and Khaled2010, 162–166; Shadid and Seltzer Reference Shadid and Seltzer1988b, 67). And of the religious groups which were politically active — such as the Brotherhood splinter group Islamic Jihad — none grew big enough to challenge the PLO's monopoly of Palestinian factional politics (Abu-Amr Reference Abu-Amr1994, 93).Footnote ¹³ Finally, it should be noted that the politicization of Islam in Palestine — as elsewhere in the region — only began in earnest following the Iranian revolution in 1979 (Aburaiya Reference Aburaiya2009; Hroub Reference Hroub and Khaled2010, 170).

It is thus unsurprising that three polls carried out in the occupied territories in 1982, 1984, and 1986 all indicated that there was no real challenge — religious or otherwise — to the secular nationalism pursued by Fatah (Shadid and Seltzer Reference Shadid and Seltzer1988a; Reference Shadid and Seltzer1988b; Smith Reference Smith1982). In the 1982 poll, 56% of West Bank respondents stated that they “wanted a ‘secular-democratic’ Palestinian state,” thus underlining the strong position of Fatah's secular-nationalist project (Smith Reference Smith1982). The results from these three polls also indicated, however, that religion was making inroads into Palestinian politics during the 1980s, and could come to produce a “cleavage within Palestinian society … between those advocating secularism and those who advocate religious alternatives” (Shadid and Seltzer Reference Shadid and Seltzer1988a, 24). For one, the 1982 poll found that 35% of respondents indeed preferred an Islamic Palestinian state to a secular-democratic one (Smith Reference Smith1982).Footnote ¹⁴ And though the results between the polls are not directly comparable because of differences in sampling and questionnaires, 56% of respondents in the 1986 poll supported either a Palestinian state governed according to Islamic Law (26%) or a state based on Arab nationalism and Islam (30%) (Shadid and Seltzer Reference Shadid and Seltzer1988a, 24).

A final indication that Islam became increasingly politicized during the 1980s is found in the election results to the student councils at Palestinian universities. Though Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestinian Communist Party (later the Palestinian People's Party) all fared well in elections in the West Bank universities, by and large winning majorities and the most powerful positions, the Islamist Blocs consistently obtained around one-third of the votes (Robinson Reference Robinson1997, 19–27).Footnote ¹⁵ Combined, these election results from the universities and the available polling data indicate that the hegemonic position of Fatah and its secular-nationalist project were increasingly at odds with large parts of the Palestinian grass-roots during the 1980s.Footnote ¹⁶ As a result, Shadid and Seltzer cautioned that if Fatah failed to “produce tangible [political] results” one could expect their support to be transferred to the Islamic movement, which in turn “undoubtedly would shift its strategy to armed struggle and violent confrontation with Israel” (1989, 297–298).Footnote ¹⁷

Fatah – From Secular Nationalism to Ideological Opportunism

Fatah was established in the late 1950s (Cobban Reference Cobban1984, 23),Footnote ¹⁹ with the stated aim “to liberate the whole of Palestine and destroy the foundations of [the] colonialist, Zionist occupation state and society” (Sayigh Reference Sayigh1997, 87). Modeled after and inspired by the contemporary liberation wars and movements — and in particular those in Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam — Fatah had established itself as the main Palestinian nationalist faction advocating armed struggle against the Israeli occupation by the time it took leadership of the PLO in 1968 (Baumgarten Reference Baumgarten2005; Rubin Reference Rubin1994, 1–23). Partly as a side effect of adopting the strategies and tactics of these guerrilla groups, and partly as a byproduct of the Cold War — with the Soviet Union sponsoring many liberation movements against the colonial powers of the West — Fatah adopted a revolutionary and secular ideology, which it combined with a nationalist rhetoric influenced by the anti-colonial discourse.

A brief look at Fatah's 1968 Constitution supports such an interpretation. The first 16 of its 130 articles are particularly relevant, as these deals with Fatah's principles and goals. Among other claims, it states that Fatah is a national, revolutionary movement, fighting against Zionism, colonialism and international imperialism. In this way, Fatah frames the liberation of Palestine as part of global fight against Western colonialism and imperialism, situating itself squarely in the anti-colonial camp (Rubin Reference Rubin1994, 8–9). Articles 12, 13, and 14 deal specifically with the nationalistic goals of the movement. Summarized, they state that Fatah fights to liberate the whole of Palestine and eradicate the Zionist existence (Article 12); establish a sovereign, democratic state in which all citizens will have legal and equal rights and there will be no racial or religious discrimination (Article 13); and to ensure that this state shall be of a progressive nature (Article 14) (Fateh 2005).Footnote ²⁰

Though the Constitution is imbued with such revolutionary rhetoric, Fatah has arguably only paid lip-service to these ideals. And while the strategic issues and international interference discussed above historically undermined the ideological rigidity of all the Palestinian factions, Fatah has consistently been the most flexible and pragmatic of them (Jamal Reference Jamal2005, 19). As a consequence of its strong focus on nationalism and lack of ideological rigidity, Fatah has been free to adopt and discard ideological rhetoric as its leaders have seen fit. During the late 1960s and 1970s, Fatah therefore utilized the then prevalent anti-colonial discourse, as can be glanced from its Constitution. However, as long as pan-Arabism remained an ideological force to be reckoned with,Footnote ²¹ it made sense for Fatah to downplay the exclusivity of its Palestinian nationalism. Instead, Fatah framed its goal of liberating Palestine as the necessary first step toward Arab unity (Sayigh Reference Sayigh1997, 198–199).Footnote ²² Later, after the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the Islamic revivalism that followed, Fatah supplemented its old slogans, such as “the right to self-determination” and “revolution until victory,” with verses and excerpts from the Koran (Frisch Reference Frisch2005).

The 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence is one example of Fatah's ideological elasticity and increased religiosity. This proclamation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders constituted a radical shift in PLO politics as it in effect recognized Israel, reduced the Palestinian territorial claim by some 78%, and paved the way for negotiations with Israel (Muslih Reference Muslih1990; Palestine National Council 1988).Footnote ²³ Relevant to the question of a secular-religious cleavage in Palestinian politics, the language of the declaration departed from previous documents and communiqués. Traditionally, these were written in a language without religious references, interspersed instead with revolutionary and leftist rhetoric. The Declaration of Independence, however, began with a basmala, the Islamic phrase “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” and contained numerous additional religious references, for example defining Palestine as “the land of the three monotheistic faiths,” quoting Koranic verses in full, and ending with “Allah Most Mighty has told the truth,” a phrase commonly said after reciting the Koran.

A powerful and more recent example of Fatah's increased religiosity is found in the temporary constitution of the Palestinian Authority, the 2003 Basic Law (Palestinian Legislative Council 2003). Fatah had the majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, and its leader Yasser Arafat was the Palestinian Authority president when the law was formulated, ratified, and promulgated.Footnote ²⁴ As such, the movement had every opportunity to codify its still ostensibly leftist and secular ideology. Instead, the constitution also begins with the basmala, and goes on to proclaim “Islam [to be] the official religion in Palestine” and that “[t]he principles of Islamic Shari'a shall be a principal source of legislation” (Palestinian Legislative Council 2003).Footnote ²⁵ In short, the Palestinian Authority constitution authored by Fatah is a glaring break from the “progressive society” the movement promised in its 1968 Charter.

This use of Islamic symbols in the nationalist rhetoric is interesting for the case at hand. As Fatah's seemingly sudden religiosity coincided with the increasingly important role of religion in Palestinian politics and identity formation in the 1980s, this substitution of revolutionary ideals with Islamic ones can easily be interpreted as political maneuvering. Fatah simply aligned its rhetoric with changing public sentiment to avoid alienating the increasingly religious population in the occupied territories. And while this change of rhetoric bears evidence of a highly pragmatic political movement, such obviously opportunistic behavior also weakened Fatah's ideological credentials.

Confronted with these examples of political pragmatism and ideological opportunism, a senior Fatah cadre retorted that Fatah has been and continues to be the

For him, the only task for Fatah was the liberation of Palestine, and if the movement needed to adapt and change its ideology and strategy to maintain its position as the hegemon in Palestinian politics and eventually achieve liberation, he saw no problem with that. Scholars and commentators interviewed by the author largely supported such an interpretation of Fatah. Dr. Giacaman, for example, argued that Fatah lacks institutional cohesion to such an extent that it might be better to think of it only as a name or idea strongly associated with the liberation of Palestine. Fatah would thus survive as a major player in Palestinian politics even if its ideology and personnel were all replaced.Footnote ²⁷ In a similar vein, analyst Jamil Rabah argued that Fatah has no ideological basis bar the liberation of parts of historical Palestine. This allows its members to operate under the Fatah umbrella while holding highly divergent views on issues ranging from women's rights, human rights, secularism, liberalism, atheism, and Islamism.Footnote ²⁸

Following this line of argument, one should not attach too much importance to Fatah's religiosity, as this too can be replaced if or when the ideological currents change. The relevance of a secular-religious cleavage to understanding Fatah's behavior in Palestinian politics is thus called into question: instead of keeping its secularism as an alternative to the religious Hamas, Fatah aligned its rhetoric and policies with the increasingly religious Palestinian electorate. As such, Fatah behaves as a Downsian self-interested party, formulating policies and picking positions in order to win influence and office, rather than seeking power to implement a certain political program (Downs Reference Downs1957). One should therefore be careful not to assign too much weight to its stated ideological positions.

Hamas – From Religious Absolutism to Strategic Pragmatism

Shadid and Seltzer's prediction that in lieu of tangible political results produced by Fatah, the Islamists would rise to the task and gain popularity and legitimacy began to materialize when Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) was founded on the eve of the first intifada in late 1987. Initially established as the armed wing of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas grew rapidly and had by 1992 eclipsed the Brotherhood itself, taking over as the main Islamist movement in the occupied territories.Footnote ²⁹ While Hamas's pivotal role in the intifada is one factor explaining the movement's popularity, it seems reasonable to assume that the increasing religiosity among Palestinians also played a part in its rise to prominence. Representing an Islamist alternative to the secular nationalists headed by Fatah, Hamas could easily exploit the increasing numbers of religious — and also politically disenfranchised — Palestinians as their constituency (Abu-Amr Reference Abu-Amr1993; Gunning Reference Gunning2008, 39; Knudsen Reference Knudsen2005, 1382–1384; Robinson Reference Robinson1997, 149).

Underlining Hamas's Islamist roots, the 1988 Charter proclaims its ultimate goal as being to raise “the banner of Allah on every inch of Palestine”Footnote ³⁰ and establish an Islamic state throughout what are today Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Defining Palestine as an eternal, indivisible Waqf (Islamic trust), the Charter further claims that it is the obligation of all Muslims to protect and liberate Palestine from oppressors and aggressors, and that to give up any part of Palestine would be tantamount to forfeiting Islam. However, while Hamas framed the goal of liberating the whole of historical Palestine in religious terms, the indivisible nature of the Palestinian territories in Hamas's rhetoric can also be interpreted as political maneuvering and a bid to become the new standard-bearer of the Palestinian nationalistic project. As mentioned, in 1988 the PLO unilaterally proclaimed a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, a move that in effect recognized Israel and surrendered most of historical Palestine. By refusing to “[r]ecognise the Zionist existence” or “[c]ede the larger part of Palestine to the Zionist entity” (Hroub Reference Hroub2000, 293), Hamas thus positioned itself firmly in opposition to the accommodating strategy pursued by Fatah and the PLO.

Importantly, the delimited territorial claim to Palestine constitutes something of a departure from Hamas's Islamist ideological heritage, which by and large rejects the notion that any one territory is more sacred than another.Footnote ³¹ This, in turn, further supports the interpretation of Hamas's territorial claims as politically and not religiously motivated. Similarly, when the Charter states that Hamas's nationalism “is part and parcel of [its] religious ideology [and based on] material, humanistic, and geographical ties,” the movement also ignores the traditional denunciation of racially or nationally based identity found in much Islamist thought (Nusse Reference Nusse1998, 47–52).Footnote ³²

Hamas's Charter further asserts that “[t]here is no solution to the Palestinian Problem except by jihad,” and that attempts to solve the conflict with Israel through negotiations are futile. This call for jihad and uncompromising stance toward negotiations are often taken as proof both of Hamas's extremism and of its religiosity. However, these positions can also be interpreted as a religious framing of Hamas's political and strategic positions, i.e., opposition to negotiations and armed resistance as the preferred strategy against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Many of Hamas's early communiqués and documents contain such a religious-political duality.

Despite the clear political dimensions in much of Hamas's nationalistic rhetoric, the movement's overly religious language has worked to distinguish Hamas from the secular ideology associated with Fatah, and has thus fueled the perception of an emerging secular-religious cleavage in Palestinian politics. The harsh language, absolutist claims, and allegations of racism and conspiracy against Zionism found in the Charter has also led many observers to conclude that Hamas is an extreme, absolutist, and uncompromising movement (see e.g., Levitt Reference Levitt2006). However, while the Charter has remained untouched since it was written, its exact status and importance for Hamas is uncertain. A number of Hamas leaders — including the head of Hamas's political bureau, Khaled Mashal — have distanced themselves from the Charter, arguing that it was never an authoritative document meant to instruct the movement's goals and strategies (Tamimi Reference Tamimi2007, 149–156). Rather, it should be seen as “a proclamation for jihad directed at the Palestinian people and formulated in the context of the 1987–1993 intifada” (Usama Hamdan paraphrased in International Crisis Group 2004, 13). In support of this position, scholars have argued that Hamas is not static but rather in constant development, pointing out that it has published a number of far less absolutist and religious documents outlining the movement's often rather pragmatic positions on a range of issues (e.g., Hroub Reference Hroub2006; see also the appendices in Tamimi Reference Tamimi2007, 265–316).

Maybe the most important development in Hamas's ideology is the implicit recognition of Israel in calling for a temporary two-state solution based on the 1967 borders (Hroub Reference Hroub2000, 73–86).Footnote ³³ While Hamas's version of the two-state solution is worded as a temporary measure, defended ideologically through the Islamic concept of hudna, or long-term truce, it implies an acknowledgment of Israel's long-term existence. Furthermore, by redefining its final objective of the complete liberation of historical Palestine into a vague goal to be reached “later” and by accepting an interim solution based on the 1967 borders, Hamas in effect emulated the 10-point program ratified by the PLO some 20 years earlier (Hamid Reference Hamid1975; Palestine National Council 1974). There are also strong indications that, in tandem with its increased focus on political pragmatism, Hamas turned less religious. Whereas its Charter and other early communiqués were riddled with religious rhetoric and quotations from the Koran, more recent documents focus almost exclusively on practical politics. Though there are still verses from the Koran in Hamas's communiqués, an analysis of three official Hamas documents from 2005 and 2006 concluded that such religious overtones had decreased dramatically, constituting a “‘new’ discourse of diluted religious content [which] reflects genuine and cumulative changes in Hamas” (Hroub Reference Hroub2006, 26).Footnote ³⁴

It thus seems reasonable to question the explanatory power of the secular-religious cleavage for understanding the political maneuvering of Hamas, and indeed for the development of Palestinian factional politics in general. While Hamas certainly has ushered in a new era in Palestinian factional politics and might have affected the nationalist discourse to some extent, the movement was established when the trend toward increased religiosity among Palestinians was already well underway and had already pushed Fatah in a religious direction.

There are, however, some noteworthy nuances in the rhetoric of the two movements, in particular the fact that Fatah remains committed to secularism, a concept Hamas has never used.Footnote ³⁵ Interviewed Hamas members — senior cadres, elected officials, and youth members — referred rather to the concept “civil state” when asked what kind of state Hamas labors to establish. Exactly what the distinguishing characteristics of such a “civil state” are, however, remains somewhat elusive. Some interviewed Hamas members seemed to interpret the concept as interchangeable with an Islamic — but not theocratic — state, making references to the Prophet Mohammad and the early Caliphs. Only on rare occasions did they employ the term “Islamic state,” however. Others emphasized qualities such as democracy, human rights, an independent judiciary, equality before the law, and religious freedom, but always stopped short of calling it secularism. This reluctance to employ secularism might relate to the fact that it is considered a Western concept, often conflated with atheism (Tamimi Reference Tamimi, Azzam and Esposito2002).Footnote ³⁶ Furthermore, many Islamists see no need to import such a concept, as Islam and Sharia have dealt with religious minorities for centuries through the dhimmi concept, which provides non-Muslims with almost the same rights and responsibilities as Muslims (Bahlul Reference Bahlul and John2004).Footnote ³⁷ In short, however, there are still uncertainties associated with the ideological goals of Hamas, as the movement has so far been unable to clearly articulate what kind of state it wants to establish.

Even when looking at how Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip from June 2007 onward, its intentions regarding the relationship between Islam and politics remain ambiguous. As the sole ruler of Gaza, Hamas could have implemented its allegedly Islamist ideology. But, despite some well-publicized events related to gender segregation,Footnote ³⁸ Hamas has not labored to establish an Islamic state. Instead, it has focused its efforts on staying in power, which — given the international boycott, strict Israeli blockade, and presence of powerful opposition groups within Gaza — has not been an easy task (Brown Reference Brown2012, 12). Hamas therefore prioritized security over politics, monopolizing violence and persecuting all opposition movements, both secular and Islamist (International Crisis Group 2008, 8–12; Sayigh Reference Sayigh2011). As a consequence, the rule of Hamas can be described as similar to that of Fatah, i.e., as unaccountable, authoritarian, and without a clear ideological direction.Footnote ³⁹

In sum, both the rhetoric and practice of Hamas leave its intentions regarding the role of Islam in politics unclear. And these uncertainties regarding Hamas's goals have ramifications for our ability to explain the movement and its development. They have fostered both the perception that Hamas remains a religious extremist movement, cleverly avoiding concepts with negative connotations in the West, and the view that Hamas has matured and moderated, moving toward political pragmatism while leaving its overly religious goals behind. As is often the case when such conflicting interpretations arise, the truth probably lies somewhere in between. Based on impressions from long-term fieldwork in the occupied Palestinian territories and among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and through careful analysis of numerous interviews with Hamas members from these localities, it is argued here that the movement has indeed matured and turned increasingly pragmatic. However, it is obvious that there are limits to how far from its Islamic roots Hamas can stray without losing its core supporters. As such, it is concluded that while Hamas was established as a religious-nationalistic liberation movement with absolutist territorial claims, it has since developed into a more pragmatic political party with a less pronounced focus on religion (Hroub Reference Hroub and Khaled2010).