Hamas and Palestine

The Contested Road to Statehood

Martin Kear

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429999406
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Economics

Hamas and Palestine: The Contested Road to Statehood analyses the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, between 2005 and 2017. The book expounds how Hamas has employed a dual resistance strategy, consisting of political and armed resistance, as a mechanism to achieve, maintain, and defend its continued political viability. Hamas entered politics to transform the role of the Palestinian Authority from an administrative institution into one driving the Palestinian quest for independence. To achieve this the analysis explains how Hamas implemented a process of soft-Islamisation in Gaza. This was intended to build the institutional capacity of the Authority based on the bureaucratisation and professionalisation of key institutions, while selectively increasing the role of Islam in society.

The book provides a detailed explanation of key shifts in Hamas's political behaviour as it adapts to the vagaries and vicissitudes of governing Gaza, despite the imposition of Israel's political and economic siege. Employing the Inclusion-Moderation theoretical framework, the book traces Hamas's transformation from a non-state armed group into a legitimate actor in Palestinian politics. The book's analysis also highlights the key role that Hamas's national liberation agenda has on shifting its behaviour towards adopting more moderate and inclusive policy stances. Specifically, the analysis demonstrates how Hamas has made measurable shifts in it political behaviour towards accepting the primacy of the two-state solution, and its dealings with Israel and the Peace Process.

The book provides a comprehensive assessment of Hamas's time in government and its capacity to deal with the vicissitudes of governing. It is a valuable resource for students and researchers interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Middle East Politics.

1
Empirical ambiguities and theoretical considerations

Hamas’s decision to participate in the electoral process in 2004–2005 marked the beginnings of a shift away from its unilateral strategy of armed resistance towards employing a DRS that incorporated political participation as a form of resistance. For Hamas, gaining a voice in Palestinian politics is central to advancing its state-building agenda. So central is the idea of an independent Palestine that for Hamas it is simultaneously an inspiration and an aspiration (Sen 2015: 211). To understand the scope, limits, and causation of these shifts in behaviour and role that the DRS plays requires a theoretical framework that not only deals with the vagaries of Hamas’s political participation but also links these with Hamas’s key organisational goal of realising a sovereign Palestine.

The chapter begins with an examination of some of the relevant literature on state-building as a way of explaining the impetus for these shifts, before analysing the pertinent aspects of the IM literature that will provide an understanding of the respective scope and limits of any shifts. Overall, the chapter represents the study’s conceptual framework that seeks to explain why Hamas’s DRS is inextricably intertwined with its state-building agenda. Recognising the symbiosis of this relationship provides a more complete and nuanced understanding of the scope, limits, and causation of shifts in Hamas’s political behaviour, and why it developed and implemented its DRS.

Conceptualising the state-building process

Despite the formal declaration of the Israeli state in 1948 and the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, neither Israelis nor Palestinians have been able to achieve their objective of a sovereign state as they had originally envisaged. While the borders of what was known as Mandatory Palestine have remained constant since 1920, exactly what constitutes the Israeli ‘state’ and any prospective Palestinian ‘state’ in the minds of Israelis, Palestinians, and the international community remains a contested concept. It needs to be remembered that the boundaries of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem are not immutable. They reflect the various ceasefire agreements signed between Israel, Jordan, and Egypt after the 1948–1949 war. They are not the recognised borders between sovereign states. As such, neither Palestinians nor Israelis universally recognise or accept these ceasefire lines as permanent territorial delineators (Gordon 2007: 458). This has important ramifications for the state-building efforts of Palestinians and Israelis, both in the minds of the participants and the international community. It is also germane given that segments within both Palestinian and Israeli societies continue to actively seek their respective states in their totality. As such, it can be argued that Palestinians and Israelis are engaged in duelling state-building enterprises.

While this study focuses primarily on Hamas’s state-building efforts and its use of a DRS, it needs to be remembered that Fatah and Israel are also undertaking their own state-building endeavours that run either in tandem or in opposition to Hamas’s. Israeli state-building efforts formally began in May 1948, and underpin al-naqbah and later events that saw the creation and then occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Palestinian state-building efforts in the OPT formally began with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the subsequent establishment of the PA. These efforts can be attributed to the First Intifada (1987–1991), to having influenced the Second Intifada (2000–2005), and to having subsequently motivated Hamas’s decision to develop and implement its DRS. Given the unresolved and hotly contested nature of Palestinian and Israeli state-building efforts, having a sound understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the state-building process, as it relates to Palestinian and Israeli endeavours, is key to understanding the causal impetus behind the scope and limits of shifts in Hamas’s political behaviour.

Understanding the function of ‘the state’

A strong ‘state’ is key to the success of any state-building project. While this may seem obvious, there is a growing understanding among the international community concerning the need to build capable, effective, and responsive states that are able to exert sufficient political authority in their territory to stave off the numerous problems associated with weakness, fragility, insecurity, and poor development performance (Menocal 2011: 1718–1719). As such, it is necessary to understand what the state is and does. While ‘the state’ may seem a rather generic and immutable term, there are many ways in which it is used in the literature to describe specific functions. Sometimes the state is used to describe the legitimate authority over a particular territory that is exercised, and recognised internally and externally. Sometimes it is used to describe the institutions of government and the administrative capacity of governance. Other times it is used to describe an entity that represents a political community within a particular territory that is over and above the government (Call 2008: 7). For the purpose of this study, ‘the state’ is used to describe the legitimate authority over a particular territory.

One of the most accepted modern conceptualisations of the state is Weber’s. He (1984: 33) argues that ‘a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given territory.’ Thus for Weber (1984: 33), the state is intrinsically associated with dominance, supported by the legitimate use of force where the dominated must obey the dominant. In this sense, the state is not a benign collection of executive agencies but an exercise and embodiment of power (Call 2008: 7). For this obedience to be assured, the dominant must undertake the organised administration of the dominated to condition their behaviour. As part of this process, the dominant need to obtain control of the bureaucracy and state institutions responsible for the distribution of material resources (Weber 1984: 35–37). In doing so, the state can forge close-knit nations out of peoples who had previously been loose collections of local groups. As states formed, they began to exert a new form of public power with large standing armies, formidable bureaucracies, and codified law (Migdal 1994: 12).

Nevertheless, Weber acknowledges that every genuine form of domination necessarily involves a degree of voluntary compliance, or consent, from the dominated. This consent is grounded in an acceptance or belief in the political authority of the state and its ruling regime (Weber 1978: 212–213). As noted earlier, consent is a function of legitimacy, which is based on either consensus or the public interest, or sometimes both (Zelditch 2001: 41). The act of consent has a moral and legal component, and provides the foundation for the belief in the government, as there is a measure of individual and societal choice inherent within the notion of consent (Beetham 1991: 18–19).

Tilly (1985: 170) also argues that the state is a function of the monopoly on the use of violence. His central proposition is that war makes states, and he provides a conceptual framework for understanding the processes of what he terms internal and external state-making. Tilly (1985: 181) argues that external state-making, or war-making, involves a process of eliminating or neutralising rivals outside of the territory where an agent holds a monopoly on the use of violence. Concerning internal state-making, he argues that this involves a process of eliminating or neutralising internal rivals within a particular territory where the agent holds a monopoly on the use of violence. The process of either eliminating or neutralising rivals strengthens the state’s ability to extract resources from its territory. This then enables the state to protect its supporters and conduct war-making. Tilly (1985: 181) notes that the process of resource extraction can range widely from plundering to bureaucratic taxation.

In many cases war-making can result in state-making, as the state increases its capacity to extract resources from the population in its newly acquired territory, leading to the eventual elimination or neutralisation of any internal rivals (Tilly 1985: 183). As Tilly (1985: 184) argues, prior to the twentieth century war-making was the primary reason why states appeared and disappeared. In this period, dominant states defended or enhanced their position in the international system by expanding the territory within which they could monopolise the use of violence. This allowed them to extract more resources that in turn enhanced their power in the international system.

Understanding the process of external state-making provides an insight into the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 and the raison d’être of Palestinian resistance. Israeli forces fought against the Arab armies and Palestinian militia to create the Israeli state. Viewed through Tilly’s lens, al-naqbah involved a process whereby Israelis eliminated and/or neutralised internal rivals, that is the Palestinians, thus becoming able to monopolise the use of violence within the boundaries of what was to become the ‘state’ of Israel. Once this had been achieved, Israelis were able to dominate and control the extraction of material resources within the state of Israel. This process continued after the dramatic victories of the 1967 war that saw the boundaries of the Israeli ‘state’ expand to include the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

The monopolisation of the use of violence and the ability to dominate resource extraction thus form key aspects of a successful state-building process and by extension a successfully functioning state. Given what is at stake, successful state-building becomes a zero-sum process where there can only be one winner. Therefore, understanding the function of the state has important consequences for Palestinians and Israelis in their respective state-building efforts. As will be determined throughout this study, being able to deny a rival the ability to monopolise the legitimate use of violence has become an important tactic for inhibiting any state-building activities. This tactic exists not just between Palestinians and Israelis, but additionally between Hamas and Fatah as the two dominant Palestinian representative movements.

State-building

Given that state institutions are responsible for guaranteeing the monopoly of the legitimate use of force, for the collection of revenues, and for the governing of expenditure, they play a central role in the state-building process (Call 2008: 8). Paris and Sisk (2008: 14) define the process of state-building as ‘the strengthening and construction of legitimate government institutions in countries that are emerging from conflicts.’ Fukuyama (2004: ix) defines state-building as ‘the creation of new government institutions and the strengthening of existing ones.’ Additionally, Richmond and Pogodda (2016: 8) argue that the state-building process is aimed at ‘producing the basic framework of a neo-liberal state in a procedural and technocratic sense.’

Consequently, the building of institutional capacity plays a central role in the state-building process as a way of restoring/guaranteeing the state’s legitimacy and ensuring its survival (Cliffe & Manning 2008: 172). Conversely, the destruction of institutional capacity weakens state institutions, thereby preventing public services from operating and increasing economic pressures that stop the payment of civil servants and the supply of basic services. This weakening of state institutions can also lead to the creation of a culture of impunity and the virtual breakdown of the rule of law. As Cliffe and Manning (2008: 163–164) argue, effective state institutions are therefore critical in addressing any inherent capacity and legitimacy deficits in states.

The process of institutional capacity building has both normative and empirical perspectives. From a normative perspective, it involves the strengthening of the extractive, coercive, and incorporative capacities of state institutions (Lee 1988: 25–27). This strengthening can have two analytical dimensions: institutionalisation and durability. The former dimension is the extent to which institutions conform to some set of principles, norms, and rules. The latter dimension concerns the extent to which those principles, norms, and rules persist over time in the face of changing circumstances (Krasner 1999: 56). From an empirical perspective, institutional capacity building involves ensuring that state institutions can formulate and implement specific policies and pursue particular goals as they participate in governing the state (Lee 1988: 27). This enables institutions to begin to operate with increased efficiency, start to control and combat incidents of corruption and bribery, and to gradually achieve and maintain a degree of transparency and accountability (Fukuyama 2004: 8–9). Understanding the differences between the operationalisation of normative and empirical institutional capacity building can be useful in understanding how and why ‘the state’ and its institutions appear to function adequately in some areas and not in others.

Fukuyama argues for the need to distinguish between what he terms the scope of state activities (normative) and the strength of state power (empirical). He (2004: 7) defines the former as ‘the different functions and goals taken on by governments’ and the latter as ‘the ability of states to plan and execute policies and to enforce laws cleanly and transparently.’ Being able to distinguish between the two provides a framework within which to understand how and why actors might attempt to control state institutions to constrain and/or enhance the scope of state activities and the strength of state power to suit or enforce a certain political agenda (Fukuyama 2004: 7).

The relative strength of state institutions is particularly relevant to the Palestinian case because of Israel’s reaction to the Second Intifada and the circumstances that continue to confront the governments of Hamas and Fatah after the 2006 election. During the Second Intifada, Israel reoccupied the West Bank, dividing it into small cantons and causing the almost complete destruction of much of the PA’s institutional capacity. Then after the 2006 election, Israel’s imposition of a political and economic siege on Gaza was intended to cripple the Hamas government’s institutional capacity to provide basic services, and law and order. It is for these reasons that the state-building efforts of Hamas analysed in Chapters 4 and 5 concentrate predominantly on capacity building as a way of increasing institutional functionality and legitimacy, and by extension to increase the political authority of Hamas’s government.

This situation becomes germane for Hamas and its political aspirations because within the scope of the state-building process is the inherent question of what type of state is being created. Given the normative aspect of institutional capacity building, and the fact that often state institutions need to be created from a very base level, the process of state-building necessarily involves normative decisions be made concerning the design of the prospective state, how any existing institutions can be incorporated into this prospective state, and importantly, what type of regime will inherit these institutions (Miller 2013: 5). With the almost indispensable involvement of external parties in the state-building process, especially in the Palestinian case, it is impossible to avoid certain political groups and leaders being favoured by these external actors. This in turn influences the process of state design and the choice of regime type deemed acceptable to inherit these newly constructed and/or rejuvenated state institutions (Call 2008: 9).

According to Hameiri (2010: 4), institutional capacity building is intended to manage the risks associated with weaker states posing a security risk to these external actors. As such, state-building becomes a process whereby these external actors shape political outcomes within the new state, primarily by circumscribing the spectrum of political choices available to domestic leaders. In doing so, these external states seek to regulate the way that the regimes in weaker states govern as the primary way to manage risk. Given the operation of Israel’s occupation regime in the OPT, it begs the question: which specific institutions are marked for improvement and which ones are left to whither,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• List of maps
• List of figures
• Introduction
• 1 Empirical ambiguities and theoretical considerations
• 2 Hamas: balancing pragmatism, principles, and purpose
• 3 Between a state and occupation: surviving Israeli state-building
• 4 The political learning curve: the promises and perils of electoral participation and success
• 5 Governing Gaza: the ‘slow assassination’ of Hamas
• 6 Fighting to survive: Hamas and its confrontations with Israel
• 7 The vacillating power-sharing dynamics of the territories
• 8 The impermanence of regional alliances
• Conclusion
• Index