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"I think this is a small 'jihadi' group. I don't know the details exactly and exactly who is behind it. They had a jihadi agenda. They were not so interested in Israel-Palestine. They were interested in getting a knife into Britain in some way"--journalist Alan Johnston on his release from 114 days in captivity courtesy of the "Army of Islam" or, in terms of what may be positively known rather than guessed, the "Doghmush Clan" of Palestine, classified as "criminal" by the ski mask wearing Hamas [1, 2].
It's good here to see Mr. Johnston out in the open air and free to talk about his experience. As Hamas mounts the public relations play one may call "Good Jihadi vs. Bad Jihadi", one may do well to keep the following in mind as regards this incident:
- Alan Johnston was relieved of freedom for 114 days of his life for no other cause than having made a name for himself covering the Palestinian struggle and choosing to work and live in Gaza;
- Before it was over, Alan Johnston was forced to speak in at least two videos, one concerned with politics, the other concerned partly with his wearing a suicide vest to warn away violent intervention in his predicament--both having been made under duress, neither produced any message of value;
- Neither Fatah nor Hamas were able to locate and dislodge the kidnappers until after Hamas had its victory by force of arms in Gaza, and we do not know what deal it has brokered with the Doghmush Clan to bring the kidnapping to a nonviolent conclusion.
One thing is certain: Hamas has made itself The Power in Gaza and, practically with puzzlement at its good fortune, has embarked on the business of installing something like tranquility after spending literally years producing all the crude bloodshed it could for the cause that is (or was) the destruction of Israel. One hopes that senseless intent may change, and it well may because as Johnston's observation suggests, there's more interest in the acquisition of power in some camps than there is in various ideological boilerplate and related agenda.
Reminder as regards Muslims and Jews: Israel and Turkey sustain a $2 billion annual economy in trade, and not one citizen in either country has been relieved of any religious freedom or practice (congruent with contemporary laws), including the approximately 25,000 Jews still resident in Turkey (Jewish immigration to Turkey was spurred by medieval prosecution in Spain; emigration by the establishment of Israel).
Now having the monopoly on violence along the the strand, Hamas has gone about the business of disarming the rest of the population, attending to globally familiar and apolitical police work, and dealing with the big "what next?" that comes to all who have gotten a significant chunk of their dearest wish.
In her lead published in The Washington Post, Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb plays on the authoritarian nature of the new regime: "Men are growing beards to show devotion to Islam, women are lowering hemlines, coffee shop debates on politics have fallen silent _ Gazans are adjusting to Hamas rule." [3]
No one really knows just two weeks into it what that Hamas rule will be like apart from its authoritarian or totalitarian aspect. However, when the racist criticism is raised to the effect that "Arabs understand only power," the Fatah-Hamas civil war not only serves to underscore the assertion, but the subsequent behavior of the population, adjusting quietly and growing quiet beneath the shadow of arms, serves to perpetuate just that civic style.
The "open societies" may find such behavior chilling--both the projection of power "out of a gun barrel" and the acquiescing to it--but religious societies generally do not, never have, and never will: conformance and fealty are all.
Ironically, by winning its war with Fatah, Hamas confronts what Great Britain, Israel, and the United States, among others, have been wrestling with for sixty years: the care and feeding of the Palestinian population. Where simple economies and small populations could well raid and thieve their way to survival, complex and large ones cannot: they must trade, and trade requires always the guaranty of security for customers and patrons alike as well as the appeal of goods and services backed, often enough, by the character of the culture that produces them.
Strangely enough, authoritarian environments may provide that level of security, and we may see for a time a benevolent Hamas, but the wise may never overlook how they got there or where they want to take their enterprise.
If I sound doubtful, I may not be. Ovid Demaris in his book Brothers in Blood notes that the Jesuits were once the terror of Europe to both Catholics and Protestants, and they became so by dealing themselves the power to murder any who disagreed with their vision through an intellectually convoluted rationale:
"Their belief in the "sovereignty of the people" and "tyrannicide" was anarchical in theory and action. God had vested sovereignty in the people, who voluntarily delegated it to the monarch. The people were free to reassert their prerogatives and depose the monarch whenver he failed to govern in accordance with their wishes. In the Jesuits' judgment, this failure occurred when the sovereign either adopted Protestantism or seemed likely to do so. Under the casuistical principle that the end justifies the means, killing a ruler who had turned away from the church was a sacred duty--not a crime" [4].
The Jesuits were defeated by larger forces, including the papacy, wherever they established a presence; as a later consequence of renouncing violence, they were reconstituted and able to grow into their present substantial role as an arm of the Catholic church. There's a lesson in the Jesuit history, and I doubt it has been lost on any of the world's well read militants.
1. "BBC's Johnston says amazed to be free." Reuters, July 4, 2007.
2. al-Mughrabi, Nidal. "BBC Gaza journalist Alan Johnston freed." Reuters, July 4, 2007.
3. Deeb, Sarah El. "More Beards, Less Political Talk in Gaza." The Washington Post, June 29, 2007.
4. Demaris, Ovid. Brothers in Blood. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977, p. 378.
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
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