A response to Joseph Massad's 'Hamas and the old/new American Crescent' by Larbi Sadiki
作者Larbi Sadiki駁斥之前巴勒斯坦裔的Joseph Massad的論點，Sadiki不認為哈馬斯的轉型是符合美國的利益以及出賣巴勒斯坦權益。下面是該文的摘要：
「哈馬斯近來的行為，若是被認為代表伊斯蘭份子(Islamist)與美國之間的關係緩和，然而這個論調是錯誤的。Massad教授對哈馬斯的懷疑論調無法說服他人。他的論點是跟隨James Henry Breasted的『肥沃的新月』(Fertile
Crescent)，透過現實主義與地緣政治角度，雖將新月視為肥沃，但卻是充滿衝突、陰謀論與國際社會的佈局。在Breasted的原來用語中，「新月」從宗教意涵代表該地區的伊斯蘭認同。如伊朗招募泛阿拉伯主義者、巴勒斯坦遜尼伊斯蘭份子以及伊拉克等，這些是美國最不希望的『禮物』。」
「Massad的論點乃是ㄧ種精英式的分析方式，但他忽略廣大阿拉伯群眾因素。他說的對，美國是中東地區最反民主的力量。美國與其盟友過去花數十億美元，企圖阻止伊斯蘭份子取得政權，但他們還是失敗了。這些伊斯蘭份子在阿拉伯之春後，已經成為既成事實，因此美國不會笨到再去犯下相同錯誤。他們現在有新的方式，不過伊斯蘭份子依舊不能忽略美國在中東的影響力。」
「回憶阿拉伯之春的開始，伊斯蘭份子是被排除在外。那時西方新聞記者、學者與觀察家急切描述伊斯蘭份子與阿拉伯之春無關。但在埃及，他們錯了。在突尼西亞，伊斯蘭復興黨(Nahda)在茉莉花革命中沒有扮演重要角色，但卻在2011年十月的選舉中取得領先地位。伊斯蘭份子不能只是因為反對美國而取得正當性。基於相互交流、瞭解與對等地位，不代表『出賣』巴勒斯坦人，或是仇恨猶太人。假如這種『陰謀論』，那就是美國綁架阿拉伯之春的論點正確無誤，那麼該如何解釋埃及與突尼西亞透過當地人民力量，追求尊嚴與民主的訴求？」
「Massad對於哈馬斯的論點完全錯誤。哈馬斯贏得2006年選舉，部份因素在於法塔內部分裂與其失去合法性。Massad忽略哈馬斯在政治包含國際關係上的意識形態。哈馬斯政治局主席Khaled Mishha與加薩總理Ismail Haniyya不可能憑個人之力，綁架哈馬斯決策機制。哈馬斯對美關係不是由政治局、少數領導人或是卡達政府決定。決策制定過程必須透過內部複雜協商機制，而達成多數人所同意的共識。例如哈馬斯是否要參與2006年的選舉，內部則花了2年的時間討論。」
「哈馬斯是有其紅線：不可能以務實的態度接受以色列佔領事實，或藉此與美國改善關係。即使阿拉伯之春被詮釋為與美國的調情，我並不認為哈馬斯會如此容易被美國所收買。Massad忽略了哈馬斯的意識形態面項，這是推動哈馬斯的主要來源。」
The US and its allies spent decades and billions to prevent the arrival
of the Islamists to power, but have failed.
Last Modified: 23 Aug 2012 10:07
It is fallacious to argue that Hamas is somehow driven to ride
the wave of Islamist-US "détente" or hypothesised
rapprochement.
To argue thus, as intimated by the learned professor, Joseph Massad, is
to sacrifice nuances, subtleties and complexities that dilute the “stories” we
all narrate and make about how we interpret Islamism’s many permutations in the
context of the Arab Spring.
What Massad leaves out in his take on the "New American
Crescent" is a story that may necessitate a constructivist
lens to re-read the unfolding scene heralded by the Arab Spring élan. Identity,
ideology and agency are all ditched as if the Arab Spring is an American
invention.
It seems to me that Professor Massad's understanding of the assumed
collusion across the Arab Spring between the diverse Arab brotherhoods and
Islamists of their ilk can additionally be reproached on grounds for haste in
passing judgment on events, actors and socio-political phenomena that are far
from determinacy. Eighteen months of uprisings and elections coupled with
flirtations with the Western powers amount not to stable phenomena; the
short-span histories in which they are incubated render them incomplete and
provisional to draw generalised and certain conclusions, desiderata for
all searchers of truth such as in the social sciences.
Points and pointers
On
this occasion, I beg to differ almost on most of the
assumptions and arguments advanced in Massad's article. This is not for
the sake of difference. The real value in interrogating some of the points made
by Massad, one of the most authoritative writers on Palestine today, lies in
opening up a forum for collective reading of how, on the one hand, Arab
Islamisms have been swept off their feet by the political tsunami that is the
Arab Spring, and, on the other, how Islamist forces from Egypt to Libya and
discourses embraced and helped, amongst others, shape the Arab Spring.
It is not Massad's use of quotation marks when referring the Arab Spring
that hint at lingering doubt, quite common amongst many Western observers,
which call for explanation. Rather, it is his misplaced
doubt when doubt is due that begs questions the article's answers may have not
convincingly addressed.
The "crescent" is Americanised. James Henry Breasted's term
"Fertile Crescent" has been rendered vacuous. This cannot be blamed
on Massad. Breasted’s crescent oozes with fecundity, including in terms of
civilisational know-how and continuity. In its reconstituted
Realist and geostrategic forms, all variations of the said "crescent"
are fertile but in conflict, conspiracy and international subterfuge and
counter-subterfuge. Massad’s article somewhat follows this deviation.
The "New American Crescent" reads as if the previously assumed
and totalised rival "crescents" are at an end. We all recall the
"Shia Crescent", the axis stretching from Tehran via Damascus all the
way to the Southern suburbs of Beirut, and which for many today stretches to
Baghdad where Iranian Islamism reigns high.
In Breasted's original usage, depending how elastic it is made,
the crescent includes lands extending from the Euphrates and Tigris (Iraq) area
to encompass Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, parts of Palestine and
Israel, and even Egypt. Religiously, the
"crescent" hints at the Islamic identity of the region. One
somehow hears "the cross and the crescent" or "the crescent and
the star-spangled banner" as the eminent Africanist Ali Mazrui wrote in
the mid-1990s. Geo-strategically, this is the territory where US foreign policy
has since the 1950s (the Baghdad Pact) traditionally sought to
"semi-encircle" their former Soviet rivals.
After the Shah and Sadat, the "crescent" is halved. Buoyed by
its Islamic revolution, Iran no longer played second fiddle to what the
Americans schemed for the region when the Shah was anointed policeman in the
Gulf region. To this end, Iran recruited Pan-Arabist
and secular Syria, Lebanon’s Shiite Islamists, Palestinian Sunni Islamists,
including until recently, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and to a large extent, Iraq,
the US’ unintended biggest "gift" to the Islamic republic.
So what is left? Turkey: yes Muslim, Sunni and led by the
Islamist AKP and can hardly be oversimplified as an American
"poodle". The
Turks maintain relations with Israel and their NATO membership does not
translate into complete subservience to US interests. There is no
denial the AKP (Justice and Development Party) is pragmatic, but its pragmatism
ends where Turkish sublime interests begin. One interest is to re-enliven ties
with the Arab and the Islamic worlds: Turkey stands by
Gazans, endorses Hamas, and uses its own brand of soft power to carve out for
itself a sphere of influence independent of US and European ties and interests.
Even the pliant Saudis and rent-seeking
Jordanians follow foreign policy agendas, which are shaped by fragments
of identity, ranging from political conservatism, or religious orthodoxy,
geographical neighbourhood and economic necessity (oil rent for the Saudis and
aid for the Jordanians). They do not get their foreign
policies designed in Washington, DC. Many Saudis wish Iran bombed for
different reasons from those Americans who favour the same policy. In the 1990s, Jordanians devised an election law to downsize
their Islamists; they still do and this member of the American crescent may not
favour the US' endorsement of Islamists in the context of the Arab
Spring.
The point is that there is no fixed and single way of painting
the so-called "new American crescent", which may turn out to be a
fallacy. I
have been in Tunisia and audience with its seminal Islamist ideologue, Rachid
Ghannouchi, and interim prime minister, Hamadi Jebali. Agreeing with the US is
not a "given".
Massad
may care to note how the draft Tunisian constitution criminalises
"normalisation of relations" with Israel. This does not fit the view
he has blown out of proportion about US-Islamist ties. As we speak, the Muslim
Brotherhood through President Morsi are subtly
recording displeasure with the Camp David Accords - and sending troops into the
Sinai without prior Israeli approval as stipulated in the terms of the Accords
is not the kind of détente the US brokers wish to have with the
Islamists.
Massad's line of argument lacks the kind of evidence only
long-time span political practice and consolidated trends deliver. They are in
shortage in this article.
Arab masses
Massad somehow follows an elitist analytical itinerary. He
overlooks the Arab masses: they authored the Arab Spring. His "story"
ignores that the US, perhaps more hastily than the Europeans, rushed to salvage
its foreign policy failure in the Arab Middle East. It often sided with
dictators; excluded Islamists, only intermittently and sporadically, from its
management of relations in the region; and as he notes
correctly deserved the epithet "most formidable anti-democratic force".
The US and its allies spent decades and billions to prevent
the arrival of the Islamists to power. They have failed. The
Islamists are a fait accompli and it would be stupid for the Americans
to keep on repeating the same mistake. They face a new learning curve; but so
do the Islamists who cannot ignore the US. It is a case of many an
elephant in the room.
We all recall how when the Arab Spring began, Islamists were
actually excluded from it. The who's who of Western journalism and a number of
scholars and observers hasted in stating Islamists had nothing to do with the
Arab Spring. Where? Which version of the Arab Spring? In Egypt, they are wrong. In Libya the role
assumed by the Islamists cannot be denied, a space to be watched over the
coming years. Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, including its youth branch, are
amongst the key actors in the Syrian uprising and now tragic civil war. In Tunisia, Nahda Party had no role in the revolution
- and nor did any other liberal, leftist or secular party - but the first
democratic poll in October 2011 favoured the Islamists.
The Islamists should not make sense only when they oppose, fight or
exclude the US. Mutuality, reciprocity and equality, if
ever achieved, should not mean "selling" Palestine, hating the Jews
or shunning dialogue. Islamists live in a world
where membership of every club, financial, political, cultural, technological
or diplomatic, has both a degree of American lineage and leverage.
All we can trust is that the Arab citizenries who vote
Islamists into office ensure they are represented with the same zeal,
professionalism and dedication Americans represent their own interests. Nascent democracy will
ensure this is the case: gone the days when single rule surrenders all in the
name of external legitimacy or political survival. At least, one expects this
much the Egyptians, Libyans and Tunisians where the Arab Spring's democratic
debut look promising - despite the travails expected in such a process.
The Arab Spring (in quotation marks) is treated with a tinge of disdain
- and the peoples who made it are excluded for the history Massad narrates in
his article. Even the US has bowed to the Arab Spring. Enough of the kind of
self-flagellation that in everything positive we find "conspiracy", as if the US is hijacking the Arab Spring,
truly the most single emancipatory moment in modern history - in the case of
Egypt and Tunisia entirely home-grown and driven by people's power and quest
for dignity and freedom. It is one aspect of Arab history with
which the International Misery Fund has nothing to do. It is not made in the
US.
Hamas, ideology and constituency
The erudite Massad gets his Hamas story completely
wrong.
The assertion of Qatar supporting Hamas to win the 2006 elections is
grotesque.
In fact, the "most formidable anti-democratic force in the region",
i.e. the US, had more to do with the elections than Qatar. The elections were
held under the Oslo Accords framework and with EU and US endorsement and
support. Pity they did not like the winners: Hamas.
That is when Qatar stepped in: when international machinations were set
in motion to cancel the will of the Palestinian voters, besiege the experiment,
and derail Palestinian coalition and capacity-building.
Qatar poured millions to support education, especially after the unity
government failed and Hamas inherited an empty treasury, courtesy of the
Abbas-Fayyadh duo.
The victory has nothing to do with outside factors or actors. Fatah lost
the plot on every front: rampant corruption. One recalls Mohammed Dahlan's
accusations to this effect in 2003, when Arafat was down and weak. The
patrimonial Arafat hit back using four words: qatil abeeh la yarith (patricide
disinherits). This is the same Fatah that worked in cohorts with the Israelis,
serving as the oppressor of the Palestinian people on behalf of the colonisers.
In 2005, Fatah's primaries exposed the democratic credentials of Arafat's
heirs: they burned the ballot boxes.
Hamas won the January 2006 elections partly on the back of
Fatah's crisis of de-legitimacy.
Massad misses the ideological content of Hamas' politics,
including international and foreign relations. Elites in Hamas are expendable. Neither Khaled Mishaal nor Ismail Haniyya can hijack the
influence of the rank-and-file in Hamas' decision-making. Built into
this ideological matrix is a religious content and education that inform the
shaping of membership, political behaviour and political philosophy.
Plus, there is the democratic-shura-cratic (consultative) ethos
that governs Hamas internally. Like most Islamist movements, Hamas' pragmatism
has limits. Relations with the US are not something
that can be decided by the politburo, a few leaders or devolved to Qatar, for
instance. Such affairs are decided through arduous processes starting with
surveying with opinion at the grassroots level and ending with systematic
consultation involving voting by all members. Thus it took two years to get endorsement for participation in the 2006
elections. (source?) The leadership suggests ideas or policy
change, and it is entitled that much in decision-making. However, it is
expected, and it does, refer to the constituency for change of policy.
Hamas has red lines: it cannot in the name of pragmatism accept
Israeli occupation of Palestine or relations with the US that facilitate such
an outcome. It
would splinter and implode. In the 2007-2009 period Hamas lived a most critical
period since its inception as a result of suspending military resistance.
Despite heightened discipline, many rebelled and even left Hamas, forming
groups such as Jaysh al-Ummah (Ummah Army). Even al-Qaida was able to recruit
from within Hamas.
However, this trend was stopped by the 2008-09 war with
Israel: Hamas had a chance to renew its commitment to military resistance and
restore confidence in its ideology and religious identity. There is a conservative
core-leadership that always keeps Hamas on the straight and narrow as far as
ideology goes. For instance, in 2007 state of disorder owing to difficulty to
control the Gaza strip was easily put under control, thanks to the influence of
leaders such as Nizar Rayyan, Said Siyam (both killed in the 2008-09 war with Israel),
Fathi Hammad, Younes Al-Astal and Wael Al-Zird.
Hamas is deft at playing politics. It has a mini-Hamas assigned with
floating balloons or trying alternative policies on the margins. For instance, Ahmad Youssef was once given some leeway in throwing ideas
such as abandoning military resistance or upgrading diplomacy. However, this led to now major breakthroughs and he is today
quasi isolated. He is not alone and there are
others who even call for direct talks with Israel. However, majority opinion may still prevent this. In
the final analysis, ideological substantiation is needed for major change of
policy.
I do not see that Hamas is co-opted or easily co-optable as if
the Arab Spring is some kind of charm offensive to flirt with the Americans, or
vice versa.
Talking, sitting at the table with the Americans, speaking to them secretly or
through the Qataris or other intermediaries do not amount to shedding
ideological spots that still mark Hamas, a political animal par
excellence.
One cannot tell Hamas by the friends it keeps or wants to keep. One thing always tell Hamas: its ideology. On this account,
Massad misses the point.
Dr Larbi Sadiki is a Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics
at the University of Exeter, and author of Arab Democratisation: Elections
without Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2009) and The Search for
Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses (Columbia University
Press, 2004).
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not
necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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