Judy Kuriansky, ed. Terror in the Holy Land: Inside the Anguish of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Westport: Praeger, 2006. xvi + 280 pp. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-275-99041-1.
Matthew Levitt. Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006. xi + 324 pp. $26.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-300-11053-1; $17.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-300-12258-9.
Avraham Sela. The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. xxx + 244 pp. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14006-5; $26.50 (paper), ISBN 978-0-231-14007-2.
Reviewed by Anders Strindberg (Center for Homeland Defense and Security, Naval Postgraduate School)
Published on H-Levant (October, 2007)
Understanding Hamas and Its Environment: A Review Essay
Brian M. Jenkins, a pioneer of the field of terrorism studies, once remarked that "unless we try to think like terrorists we are liable to miss the point." This very basic proposition does not seem like too much to ask of a field that has tasked itself with the scholarly understanding, interpretation and explanation of complex individual and group behaviors. Far from applying Jenkins's suggestion, however, the persistent general trend within the field since its inception in the mid-1970s has instead been for scholars to think like counterterrorism practitioners; to blur the field between intellectual inquiry and practical counterterrorist efforts; to combat rather than understand their research subjects. In the process, the field as a whole has come to suffer from a bewildering variety of methodological and intellectual deficiencies.[1] The general canons of post-Enlightenment academe were virtually suspended even as the field emerged, replaced by a state of self-imposed intellectual martial law. These strictures have only been tightened since September 11. As a field, the study of terrorism is not merely saturated with ideological assumptions and normative preconceptions; it depends on them for its survival. Regrettably--from both scholarly and counter-terrorism/policy oriented perspectives--the study of terrorism qua terrorism rarely sheds light on its subject matter.
For two decades, Western understanding of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, as well as the dynamic of Israeli-Palestinian violence of which it plays an integral role, have largely been trapped within the aforementioned confines of terrorism studies. Insightful studies are few and far between, and what is passed off as scholarship often turns out to be little more than partisan screeds and agenda-driven vilifications of one or the other party to the conflict. The three volumes under review provide an interesting cross-section of scholarship on Hamas and the violent environment it inhabits. Individually, each volume offers a specific perspective and contribution; as a collection they provide an important overview of the relevant corpus of Western scholarship.
It was with some trepidation that this reviewer picked up Judy Kuriansky's volume, Terror in the Holy Land: Inside the Anguish of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Psychoanalytical and other contributions by mental health experts to the study of terrorism commonly hold that terrorist violence is less a political instrument than an end in itself; a result of compulsion or psychopathology rather than rational agency; that the real problem is not social or political, but mental and therefore cannot be affected by policy changes in the social or political realm. A variation on this theme is the idea that the terrorists' ambient sociocultural milieu produces mental defects--Islamic child rearing practices, for instance, have been said to produce children with borderline personalities that are disproportionately prone to becoming suicide bombers.[2] After decades of research, there is still zero evidence to support the idea of a "terrorist psychopathology" on the individual level, while attempts to blame "native culture" rest on flawed anthropology rather than clinical evidence. They constitute textbook examples of what Dag Tuastad has dubbed the "new barbarism thesis"--"presentations of political violence that omit political and economic interests and contexts when describing that violence, and present the violence as resulting from traits embedded in local cultures."[3]
Against this background, but also due to the many merits of the volume itself, Kuriansky's Terror in the Holy Land turned out to be a pleasant surprise that will likely prove a valuable and durable contribution to scholarship on the psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Kuriansky has pulled together a remarkably broad range of medical and academic specialists, as well as primary source material from the conflict's victim-participants. The diversity of professional opinions and personal insights is unusual in a field distinguished by fierce partisanship and an absolute unwillingness to consider the views and opinions of "the Enemy Other." The book contains a collection of essays that range from the dull-witted to the brilliant, but because of the way that they are collated and offered to the reader--almost as an anthology of prevalent uses of psychology and psychiatry, leaving endorsement and judgments of utility entirely to the reader--the volume actually contributes to our understanding of how protracted social and military conflict affects social and individual psychologies.
The book's thirty-one chapters are divided into four sections. Part 1, "Times of Terror: Anguish on both Sides" sets the tone for the entire volume, with chapters that appear selected in order to achieve maximum balance in presenting the anguish in Israel and Palestine. This reviewer's one major complaint is that the editor's effort to be balanced comes at the expense of realism. One gets a sense that the editor has gone out of her way to present the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as symmetrical, when in fact it is profoundly asymmetrical. The lack of parity is part and parcel of the distinct psychological ramifications on both sides, but its effects remain largely obscured by the manner in which the conflict is presented.
Part 2, "Psychosocial Issues in the Conflict" lifts out the social identity aspects of the conflict. Some of the chapters in this section, which underscore in various ways that it is the social trauma that is important--in fact central--to understanding the ongoing dynamic of violence, are the highlights of the book. Each chapter contributes something to our understanding of the ways in which this social trauma impacts individual psychologies and vice versa in a continuous feedback loop. Social psychology continues to offer profound insight into the dynamics within which organizations such as Hamas are caught, and which they in turn fuel and affect. Part 3 is entitled "Women and Children Caught in the Conflict' and the fourth and concluding part, is "Therapeutic and Educational Efforts for Understanding, Coping, and Reconciliation." The essays therein do a good job of lifting out diverse and sometimes opposing perspectives. In such a wide ranging collection of essays, however, it is peculiar and unfortunate that there is not a single chapter that deals specifically with the refugee experience; neither in Gaza, nor in the camps located in neighboring Arab lands. The effects of displacement are important in terms of political activism and militancy, and a psychological or psychosocial evaluation of the phenomenon would have been valuable.
"Dr. Judy," as the editor is known from her work as a radio show host and tantric sex therapist, has done extensive work on trauma recovery in Israel but is undeniably an outsider in the academic study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Perhaps this is the reason why this volume does what most other contributions have failed to do, namely transcend partisan divides and create dialogue on some of the most intractable aspects of one of the longest running conflict in the modern era. Terror in the Holy Land is a pleasant surprise and a good and oftentimes profoundly insightful overview of the state of the field, as well as its diversity of opinions.
Matthew Levitt's book, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad, was written while he was director of terrorism studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The book's main project is to reconcile the military and welfare aspects of Hamas: "Are these disparate activities carried out by separate and unconnected wings of a larger movement, or is Hamas a unitary organization that sees good works and murder as equally legitimate means to achieve its non-negotiable ends" (p. 1)? The inside cover claims that Levitt "draws aside the veil of legitimacy that Hamas hides behind" and "demolishes ... the myth of disparate wings in Hamas." In reality, the book's presentation of Hamas is so polemical and one-dimensional as to undercut both its credibility and utility. It is quite a challenge to sustain interest throughout the more than three hundred pages as Levitt treats Hamas's complex organization as a mere support network for terrorism; reduces its history to a mere timeline of terrorism; and conceptualizes its dynamic political agenda as static subterfuge for terrorism. These simplifications quickly become tiresome, and serve neither scholarship nor the efforts of counter-terrorism practitioners.
The author's area of expertise is financial networks. Thus, perhaps not surprisingly, throughout the book there is no evidence that he is even remotely interested in the cultural mores, social milieu, inter-factional spectrum and historical setting within which Hamas is able to flourish. Although drawing on an undeniable wealth of English-language documentation, there is hardly an Arabic primary source to be found, which is clearly unacceptable for a book touted as "the most complete and fully documented assessment of Hamas ever written" (inside cover). Moreover, of the book's 581 endnotes, only 30 refer to author interviews. Of these, 20 refer to interviews with (mostly anonymous) Israeli "experts" on Hamas whereas 1 single note cites an author interview with two Hamas operatives in Israeli custody. Clearly Levitt's contribution has no place even for a balanced presentation and discussion of the perspectives and arguments of the group on which he claims expertise. Enough said--its publication marks just another day in the world of terrorism studies.
Where Levitt consistently sees only terrorists, terrorism and terrorist support infrastructure, Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela's contribution, The Palestinian Hamas, is able to see Hamas as a the multidimensional and complex organization that it is and has been since its inception. The Palestinian Hamas, first published in 2000, remains one of the best efforts within Western scholarship to understand the organization. The contribution of these two outstanding Israeli scholars "seeks to portray Hamas from both discursive and practical perspectives through the prism of its worldview and to examine its conduct since its inception … to survey the ideological trends within the movement; analyze the political considerations shaping Hamas's strategies of action; and evaluate its options in the event of a future settlement between Israel and the nascent Palestinian Authority" (p. x). Because the authors are focused on the social reality within which Hamas exists, they are able to make sense of and explain, with sometimes brilliant lucidness, the external and internal tensions that shape policy, stimulate attacks, and inform working relationships with other groups and movements. The tension, as with any ideological actor, is between the ideal and the real; between desired outcomes and acceptable instruments. As Mishal and Sela argue:
"Since its very birth in late 1987, Hamas has espoused a strategy of action that combines a long-term vision (to be fulfilled by a continuous jihad) for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of an Islamic state in all of its territory, from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean sea, with a commitment to the community's well-being, which requires pragmatism and a quest for temporary arrangements on the form of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip alone. As an Islamic movement that boasts an alternative outlook, Hamas cannot shake off its radical image. Yet as a social movement, Hamas must take into account the everyday needs and priorities that require coming to terms with the reality of political arrangements" (pp. xxiii-xxiv).
The only difference between the present and previous editions is a seventeen-page preface intended to provide an overview of the intervening six years. The preface realizes this goal, but adds little in the process. The original was a solid enough work of scholarship to obviate editing the main text, while those few passages that could perhaps benefit from updating are not really aided by the preface.
The book is divided into six thematic chapters, each dealing with a particular aspect of Hamas's development and activities. The primary source material used by the authors is mainly textual, displaying no evidence of personal encounters with Hamas leaders and cadres. Both authors are Israeli, however, so they do have a valid reason for not having conducted personal interviews. The authors--one of whom, Sela, was formerly in the employ of Israeli intelligence--were allegedly given access to a wealth of Hamas internal documents captured by Israeli security forces. While this is a less than ideal way of acquiring research material within the context of an ongoing conflict, they have made excellent use of it. The sources have been woven into a narrative that makes clear that the authors are not only good analysts, but excellent writers.
After an introductory overview of extant research on political Islam and Islamic movements, chapter 1 retraces the roots and historical setting of Hamas's emergence, doctrine and ideology. It covers salient dates and events in the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood's (MB) trajectory from an essentially non-violent social and educational institution to the establishment of Hamas--its "combatant arm"--in 1987. Yet the fourteen-page chapter is cursory and disappointing as a guide to pre-1987 Islamic activity in Palestine. The reader who wants a sense of historical depth would do well to consult Beverly Milton-Edwards still unrivalled Islamic Politics in Palestine (1996), which is curiously absent from Mishal and Sela's bibliography, as well as the recent contribution by Loren D. Lybarger, Identity and Religion in Palestine (2007).
The second chapter discusses the tension created in "the encounter of dogmas and politics" (p. x). Situating the discussion within the general context of Islamic revival, it backtracks all the way to the foundation of the MB in Egypt, dealing at some length with issues more appropriately addressed in the preceding historical overview. Even so, the chapter paints an interesting picture of the MB's and Hamas's quest to adapt religious principles to political realities and possibilities. Particular attention is paid to the movement's relationship with the leadership of the PLO and PA, as well as the various political contortions the organization has gone through in order to remain politically significant. As the chapter reveals the doctrinal complexities that have faced Hamas's leaders, it clearly demonstrates that the movement is far from a collection of ideologically static, uncompromising fanatics. Rather, it makes clear that brinkmanship, compromise and balancing acts are Hamas's forte.
Chapter 3, whose focus is "the development of the movement's violent activities and on the structural implications and considerations deriving from their use" (p. x), examines the structures and activities of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Battalions, Hamas's military wing, and provides an interesting account of the process of cost-benefit analysis that the authors convincingly argue determines the efficacy of armed operations at all times. If any chapter suffers somewhat from the passage of time since the first edition's publication, it is this one. While the discussion is primarily conceptual (and, importantly, accurate) and therefore not rendered invalid by recent developments, the intervening years have seen significant changes in the military reality on the ground, including the capabilities and modus operandi of Hamas itself.
One central aspect of Hamas's internal political dynamics that Mishal and Sela appear to misinterpret is the underlying reasons for the militancy of Hamas's "outside leadership," located in Syria and Lebanon, compared to the relative moderation of the "inside leadership" located in West Bank and Gaza Strip. The authors routinely attribute the outside leadership's militancy to its physical distance from the sociopolitical realities of everyday life in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In fact, they suggest in a later chapter that the outside leaders "do not have to cope with the reality of Israeli occupation, the PA's domination, and the daily hardships of the Palestinian community, which might explain why they can afford to adopt a harder line concerning the armed struggle and the Oslo process" (p. 161). Today, then, they would presumably be more militant for much the same reason, with the added difference that they also do not have to cope with the difficulties of local and national government. Yet rather than ascribing the outside leaders' militancy to a defective grasp of reality, a grasp of a different reality is a better explanation. The outside leaders live and work among Palestinian refugees in neighboring Arab countries, whose profound sense of abandonment and betrayal since Oslo, combined with adverse socioeconomic circumstances, have produced a political dynamic very different from that inside Palestine. The outside leaders' relative radicalism is better understood as a reflection of daily contact with a more desperate and less easily mollified outside constituency. However, and rather disappointingly, the very existence of Palestinian refugees--constituting, after all, a majority of the Palestinian people--is almost totally ignored throughout the book, as are most political repercussions of their existence.
Chapter 4 examines Hamas's relations with the so-called "Palestinian mainstream." It argues, rather conventionally, that Hamas's structural subordination within the PA-centric political system precipitated and sustained its effort at dialogue and coexistence with Arafat's PLO/PA leadership. In this context, the authors explain how Hamas has been able to adapt its doctrinal framework for the sake of avoiding confrontation with the PLO/PA. The chapter never makes a distinction between the PLO leadership and the PLO resistance, represented by groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). This carelessness confuses matters because, on the ground, Hamas's relationship with the PLO resistance has been and remains based on entirely different premises than its relations with the PLO leadership. The relationship between Hamas and the PLO resistance has essentially been an opportunistic partnership while the movement's relationship with the PLO leadership has always been essentially adversarial. This is not properly explained or accounted for, yet of huge significance in terms of Hamas's ability maneuver the Palestinian political scene.
The fifth chapter studies "the movement's vacillations and calculations with regard to participation in the political process and the bureaucratic apparatuses under the Palestinian Authority…." (p. x). Following an instructive overview of how other Islamic movements have approached the practicalities of political participation, the authors proceed to discuss Hamas's options and choices. Interestingly, they suggest that the prolonged internal debate as to whether the primary instruments of the struggle should be military or political, coinciding roughly with the Madrid negotiations 1991 through 1993, "shows unequivocally that Hamas's paramount concern was to ensure its future as a social and political movement within the framework of a Palestinian self-governing authority. The armed struggle against Israel was therefore not a strategic but a tactical goal, subordinated to the movement's need in the Palestinian arena" (p. 120).
This insight is a radical departure from the received view, but Mishal and Sela make a sound argument in support of their claim; this is the junction at which their use of internal Hamas documents is most effective. The implication of viewing Hamas's armed struggle against Israel as tactical rather than strategic is, of course, that there is room for negotiation and dialogue. Mishal and Sela are extraordinarily adept at correctly reading and interpreting Hamas's signals. They have understood the complexities and nuances, sociocultural norms and cues and political imperatives that constitute Hamas's political arena. They understand that no rarely means no, and that "from the river to the sea" is a rallying cry rather than an agenda. One cannot help but speculate that if Western policy makers had taken seriously--or cared about--the insight offered by Mishal and Sela as this book was first published in 2000, the painful ongoing standoff between the Western world and Hamas, beginning after the latter's landslide election victory in January 2006, might well have been avoided. Let's hope that someone pays attention to this edition.
Notes
[1]. See David W. Brannan et al., "Talking to Terrorists: Towards an Independent Analytical Framework for the Study of Violent Sub-State Activism," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 24, no. 1 (January 2001): 3-24.
[2]. Joan Lachkar, "The Psychological Make-up of a Suicide Bomber," Journal of Psychohistory, 20 (2002): 349-367.
[3]. "Neo-Orientalism and the New Barbarism Thesis: Aspects of Symbolic Violence in the Middle East Conflict(s)," Third World Quarterly 24, no. 4 (2003): 591-599.
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Citation:
Anders Strindberg. Review of Kuriansky, Judy, ed., Terror in the Holy Land: Inside the Anguish of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and
Levitt, Matthew, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad and
Sela, Avraham, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence.
H-Levant, H-Net Reviews.
October, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13758
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