The Article depicts the changing trends in Hamas and their political performance as against
the religious beliefs and doctrines.
There is a perhaps apocryphal — if symbolic story — of the appearance of Hamas leader Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rantisi at the headquarters of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who had just arrived in Gaza from Tunis to take the reins of the still nascent Palestinian government. Arafat was buoyed by the Oslo Accords, and by his
political resuscitation, after years of exile. Still, it was apparent to his closest friends that their old comrade-in-arms was becoming increasingly alienated from the responsibilities the Oslo agreement had placed on him. He was in a foul mood. “He now found himself to be simply the mayor of Gaza,” one of his aides is said to have remarked. So it was perhaps predictable that the bespectacled and scholarly looking Rantisi was kept waiting outside of Arafat’s office, an insult that he did not take lightly, though his pride kept him from complaining.
When Arafat finally called Rantisi in for their meeting, the PLO leader was seated imperiously behind his desk. There was no doubt that he had little regard for Rantisi, though the two had communicated through the years. When it was apparent that Arafat would not come out from behind his desk to greet the Hamas leader (yet another insult, though one to which Arafat’s aides had grown accustomed), Rantisi began to shout and wag his finger at him. His speech, accusing Arafat of “treachery” and “treason” could be heard in the hallway outside of Arafat office. “You have sold out the Palestinian people,” Rantisi railed. “You should be put on trial. You should be chased from office.” Rantisi’s speech, it is said, went on for many minutes, after which there was a short, breathless pause. Arafat eyed the Hamas leader calmly.
Whether true or not, the story of the Arafat-Rantisi confrontation is a talisman for the world’s own confusion about what Hamas is — and what it might want. Is the Islamic Resistance Movement an extremist “Muslim fundamentalist
organization,” bent on imposing an orthodox religious program — an Islamic state? Or (as implied by Rantisi’s blunt answer to Arafat), is it a political party, bent on gaining political office through free, fair and open elections? While Western political analysts argue endlessly over this question, no one has taken the first step in providing a sensible and detailed profile of the organization — its members and leadership. Despite the formidable scholarship conducted on the Islamic Resistance Movement, its organizational structure, roots and history (the most recent, and best account being the authoritative and detailed book offered by Azzam Tamimi in Hamas, Unwritten Chapters ), no certain statistical profile of the organization and its members has been published. In order to fill this appreciable gap, this paper will offer a strictly anecdotal, and therefore non-empirical look at the organization, drawn from the author’s modest meetings with organization members and leaders. The evidence asserted is not scientific, because no such scientific poll of the organization’s membership has been done, but suggestive. Still, barring the suddenappearance of a scholarly institution’s more detailed study of the organization’s membership (a study that is probably not forthcoming).