Hamas, Jihad and Popular Legitimacy

Adopting a 'critical' approach, this book investigates the many faces of Hamas and examines its ongoing evolution as a resistance organisation in the context of the Israel/Palestinian conflict. In particular, the work interrogates Hamas' interpretation, reinterpretation and application of the twin concepts of muqawama (resistance) and jihad (striving in the name of God). The text frames the movement's capacity to accrue popular legitimacy through its evolving resistance discourses, centred on the notion of 'jihad', and the practical applications thereof. Moving beyond the dominant security-orientated approaches to Hamas and the Islamic movement in the Palestinian Territories, the book investigates the polysemic nature of these conceptions of resistance and jihad to include their social, symbolic, political and ideational applications. The combination of these diverse interpretations of these concepts allow Hamas to function on multiple levels as a comprehensive social movement. Hamas, in effect, interprets and reinterprets the concepts of jihad and resistance according to exigency, practicality and Palestinian popular opinion. These polysemic conceptions of jihad and resistance, and the practical applications thereof, demonstrate Hamas' pragmatic flexibility in temporal, real-world, terms. By recognising the flexibility of the movement, and its ability to rationalise and diverge from its putative ideological bases, it is possible to discern opportunities for accommodation and ultimately peaceful coexistence with the movement. Where possible, this volume attempts to privilege first-order knowledge and experiential elucidations emanating from the movement itself, its political representatives and, indeed, the Palestinian population in general. Many of these accounts were collected by the author during fieldwork in the Middle East, predominantly in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but also throughout the wider region as necessary. The author attempted to engage in a 'dialogic' yet critical approach to the movement itself, its supporters and sympathisers, as well as the population in general, in order to render a more localised and humanised account of the movement and its place within Palestinian society. The humanisation of Hamas is imperative because the movement's message resonates with large segments of the Palestinian community and it is, thus, an integral component to any long-term solution to the Palestine/Israel conflict. Demonization and isolation, in contrast, pre-empts constructive engagement and, ultimately, the chance of peaceful coexistence between the two nations inhabiting the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. In sum, this work seeks to critically highlight the human aspect of knowledge and Islamic socio-political activism in the Palestinian Territories. This book will be of much interest to students of Hamas, political violence, critical terrorism studies, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR in general. This work not only synthesises existing literature on Hamas, but also builds upon these earlier works. Not only does this work provide new primary data from the West Bank and Damascus, but it also investigates a variety of empirical events that have occurred since the publication of previous works. This work offers an alternative way of viewing the movement's popular legitimacy grounded in theoretical, empirical and ethnographic terms.