John Voll, Amjad Atallah - Hamas: Past and Present (2008)

Speaker 1: We would like to welcome Dr. John Vohl and Mr. Amishad Atalla, who will be presenting Hamas Past and Present. Dr. Vohl is the associate director of the Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim and Christian Understanding at Georgetown and a professor of Islamic history. And Mr. Atalla is the founder and president of Strategic Assessment Initiatives and has advised the Palestinian negotiating teams in issues dealing with Israel and the United States. Today Dr. Vol will speak first, followed by Mr. Atala, and we would like to ask everyone to hold their questions until the end when we will have a question and answer series. Welcome our speakers.

John Voll: And we both promise to not talk so long so that you can in fact ask some questions. I will be talking for about 15 minutes or so, as will my colleague, and that should leave us a reasonable amount of time. However, that's a short time, so I won't do lots of jokes and be cheerful and friendly. Except for one, just sort of a reminder, it's really interesting to see sort of wall-to-wall people on this subject and think back to when I started my work on Islamic movements a long time ago. When I was a graduate student and decided that I would do my doctoral dissertation on a Sufi tariqa, even my classmates in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard would say, what's a Sufi tariqa? And when I would say, well, I'm looking to see how Islamic organizations that represent movements of renewal and resurgence, cope with modern, I would usually get the reminder, well, that's a nice sort of museum subject. Why don't you go where the action really is and study the Communist Party in Syria? Or why don't you really work on Nazism? If there would have been this center here in 1965, 40 years ago, and they would have announced a session on the religious dimensions of the Palestinian movement, maybe three people would have appeared. And I think that that in itself is really part of the important dynamic of my part of the subject, and that is to look at the past, the background, and try and see where we are as we get to the 1990s and the 21st century. It would be possible to do two totally separate narratives for the background and history and context of Hamas. One narrative would be the Palestinian narrative. How does Hamas fit into the story of the development of Palestinian movements and the broader Palestinian movement. And the other narrative, which could almost have no relationship to that first one, would be how does Hamas fit into the narrative of the Islamic resurgence of the second half of the 20th century. Now, what I'd like to do is do briefly an introduction to both of those quick narratives. to point out, in fact, how by the time we hit the 1990s, Hamas represents an historically significant development within a much broader framework than simply understanding one particular organization that is one among many different organizations in the Arab world of the second half of the 20th century. I think that the first reminder is to look at the Palestinian narrative, the narrative of the history of what we now think of as the Palestinian movement in the 20th century, and be reminded that our subject now changes the way we should be looking at the story of the Palestinian movement in the first 87 years of the 20th century. Most of the time that story is told without reference to Islamic movements. But if we look back, if we look back at the first 40 years of the 20th century, it is possible to identify in a religious dimension, and particularly in Islamic dimension, that if one is dealing with essentially the secular history, that developed out of telling the story of Fatah and Yasir Arafat and company that gets ignored. Now we start with the Ottoman Empire and what becomes later thought of as the Palestine question. And we start in the context of a totally different narrative and a totally different question. It's still a question, but it's in those days, in the first 15 years of the 20th century, it was the Eastern question. What happens to the Ottoman Empire? There was no sense, really, of talking about Palestine. There was no sense of talking about a variety of movements and peoples and groups that later become important. Instead, what we are looking at in the eastern end of the Mediterranean is a set of societies where you have great families that are primary organizers of activities, great families. You have regional identifications, and you have religious identification. And from the very beginning, the organizations that were responding in the late 19th and early 20th century to the beginnings of Jewish settlements in the eastern Mediterranean, those organizations were based on the ability of families to mobilize support, the abilities of people who were, say, in urban centers or people who had religious organizations. And so at the end of the First World War, when the contemporary boundaries of the Middle East were drawn by the European peace settlement as it was set for the Middle East. The British governor general of the newly created Mandate of Palestine arbitrarily appointed someone who would essentially speak for the Arabic-speaking population of the new Mandate of Palestine. And that organization was the Supreme Muslim Council. When in the 1930s you had the great revolt of the Arabic-speaking people, it was organized in some way or coordinated by something that was called the Higher Arab Committee or the High Arab Council. But that tends, as we look at it, to... obscure, at least a bit, the fact that when one, when one scratches the first major era of activism of 1936 to 1939, the beginnings of that comes with a fiery preacher by Izzedine al Qasim. Qasim? Which is he? Is he, he's Qasim? Qasim. And you have a fiery preacher. And You get set in motion then, the Qasem, even though he is killed by the British very early on, you have as the organizing symbol of that, not a communist leader, not a brown shirt, you know, Palestinians for the brown shirts or something like that, you have an organization whose primary symbolic label is associated with an Islamic leader. When you get to the first war in 1948, By then, there is a significant component for an Islamic organization in that conflict where you have volunteers from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Now, I can go into lots of sorts of details and things like that, but what you have is a presence of Islamic organizations of resistance that go back to the 1930s. But as one looks at the highly visible dimension of the conflict, it sort of shifts. You have essentially the battle over the Palestine mandate, and then that becomes at the end of the 1940s and throughout the 1950s, that becomes the... Arab-Israeli conflict. And the major headline getters are the heads of existing independent Arab states who speak for the inhabitants of the former Mandate of Palestine. And it isn't until 1960 that you get then an organization being set in motion that says the Palestinians should be operating for themselves. But there you have the beginnings of Fatah, and at least if you're looking at the Hamas historical narrative and the historical narrative of the Muslim Brotherhood, at the beginning in the late 1950s and in the early 1960s, there was some association. But in the 1960s, what you have is the emergence of a non-religiously identified major set of Palestinian organizations that become the most visible dimensions of the Palestinian movement. During the 1950s and 1960s, You have at least some of the historians in the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations say that this is a period where it was fruitless to try and do open resistance. This was a period of mosque building and education looking forward to the next generation. And you have then this grand sort of movement of the 50s and the 60s where you get... Palestinian organization. But following the 1967 war, the organizations that have greatest visibility, sort of the mainstream, Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization and the radical groups, that full spectrum goes from Arafat to George Habash or Nayef Hawatma. And in the visible spectrum, there isn't any Palestinian organization that is explicitly identified as Islamic. in that narrative. It's interesting to go back and look at the really comprehensive studies in the late 60s or early 70s of the Palestine movement. The really remarkably helpful book edited by William Quant, and in particular, Anne Lesh's article in it on the Palestine movement. You look at that, and it's as if Islam really doesn't exist among the Palestinians. But if we look at that period with the perspective of 2006, we can say that in fact there were Islamic organizations and Islamic groupings that were there, that were not paid attention to, Because whether you were a Palestinian Marxist militant or a Palestinian mainstream nationalist or a policymaker in the United States or an Israeli, everybody tended to know that religion, in modernization, religion was fading. Religion was going to disappear. And therefore, you didn't have to pay attention to it. And so remarkably, in this period, as the... secular radicals and as Fatah become increasingly visible as the spokespersons for the Palestinian cause, the Israelis in opposition provide even some support for the Islamic groups as a way of providing an alternative to the emergence of the Palestinian movement. Now, of course, this all changes for a whole variety of reasons and in a whole variety of contexts. By the end of the 1980s, when you have in late 1987 and in 1988, you have the emergence of an explicitly Islamic organization that is the heir to the Muslim Brotherhood of the Egyptian volunteers and the activities of Sheikh Yassin in the 1980s. And it emerges, and I'll leave that to my colleague to really say, you know, what have we got now that comes out of this? Because what I want to do is do the second context for a moment. Because by the late 1980s, having an Islamic... organization as a recognized basis for real mobilization is really credible. It's not just credible on the streets of Cairo or the streets of Jerusalem, but it was credible here on the streets of Washington, D.C. as well. In 1965, the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood was anything except a has-been that some of you may have had Richard Mitchell's book on the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood assigned to you. Poor Dick used to try and persuade people that the Muslim Brotherhood really meant something in the late 1960s or early 70s, and nobody would believe him. By damn, by the end of the 1980s, everybody believed, even more than they should, that, oh, gee, the Muslim Brotherhood is a threat, and so on. And some of you may have seen the History Channel special on the Muslim Brotherhood called The Brotherhood of Terror. I had some part in that. But basically, my major part in that was to try and tone down some of the inflammatory stuff that was put into that. And it's remarkable how much of it got through anyway. But the Muslim Brotherhood is a threat. dear old bureaucratic Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a threat somehow, was credible by the end of the 80s. And that's because of the whole history of Islamic movements in general, that second narrative that I mentioned, that in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, You had some movements like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan that were dedicated to trying to Islamize the modernizing societies in which they found themselves. But they were part of the old-fashioned nationalism of the upper middle class nationalists who, quote, secured independence for their countries in various movements, whether it was in Asia, the Middle East, or sub-Saharan Africa. And they were the old-fashioned guys whose basic vision was they wanted to get rid of the colonialists so that they could sit in the same chair. Mustafa Nahas didn't want a radically socially changed or transformed Egypt. He just wanted to sit in the same chair. This is, of course, my own political view. But he just wanted to sit in the same chair that Lord Cromer, the British Consul General, had sat in 50 years before. So you had the old nationalism that essentially achieved independence for Syria and for Lebanon and for Jordan. And the problem then of the Palestine mandate. But these were people with the color of my hair, the old gray-haired guys. But by the 1950s, it became clear that the old-fashioned nationalism didn't work. And what you needed then was bright, young, handsome military officers who could get things done. And so you have in the 50s and 60s the emergence of radical dictatorial nationalism that was to replace the old-fashioned nationalism. And it was even less oriented toward trying to implement Islamic programs. But by the 1970s, it was clear that that kind of program had also not succeeded very well. And you had the emergence of a revolutionary Islamism that led to then what is political Islam of the 1980s. Now, in this context, what you have then is the old, underground, under-emphasized Islamic dimensions of the Palestinian movement being able to become more crystallized and more clear as an option to the old secular nationalist perspectives. It's not that Sheikh Ahmad Yassin was opposed to the vision of an independent Palestine, but he did not necessarily accept the view that it should be essentially an Arafatian, Nasserite state, if you will. In a way, and this is just about done here, in a way, let me suggest that the last great Nasirite, that is the last great sort of standard bearer for nationalism of the 1960s style, the last great standard bearer of that was Yasser Araf. And he survived the 70s and the 80s because of the special conditions of Palestine. But by the end of the 80s and early 90s, it was clear to many people that there was some need for alternative programs, and Hamas, in a sense, met that need. So that you have, by 1987, 88, 89, a coming together of the evolution of the Palestinian movement and the evolution of political Islam in the 20th century. And Hamas in 1987, 88, 89 represents essentially a crystallization of those two trends in one, a synthesis of those two trends in one organization. I'll stop here so that I don't take up too much more time. Thank you.

Amjad Atallah: Thank you, Dr. Vola. It's great, actually, to get a historical perspective of a lot of the issues that we discuss. We always discuss them as if they've appeared out of nowhere, and we're always surprised and shocked by them. So it's actually very useful to have a historical perspective. I also want to thank the Palestine Center for having this series of talks and for always providing a unique forum for these types of discussions to take place. You don't hear them actually elsewhere in Washington. And I want to also thank them on their prescience, because who could have imagined, I mean, the timing is perfect, right? Who could have imagined that the attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government in Palestine would have led would have led to increased violence and regional instability. It falls into the who could have predicted that disbanding the Iraqi army would have been a bad idea, or that the levees in Louisiana would be breached. That'll be the only sarcastic part of the speech. But the point is that a lot of this was expected, and a lot of this was predicted. So it's not a surprise that we're here. And I think what we'll do is discuss, in a sense, why everybody picked the policies that they picked that have led us to be right here. And I'll start with describing a Sufi story, which is actually not just a Muslim story, but it's a story, I guess, that you hear in many religious and mystical traditions about the blind men and the elephant. And you guys have probably all heard this. A group of blind men stumble across an elephant, and each one is trying to describe the elephant. And one grabs the trunk and says, well, the elephant is like an anaconda. And another one grabs the leg and says, no, an elephant is like a tree trunk. And another one grabs the side and says, no, an elephant is like a wall. One grabs the ear and says, no, the elephant is like a fan. And one grabs the tail and says, no, the elephant is like a vine. Now, the point is, of course, that all of them were right, but all of them were wrong. And in a sense, everybody who's been trying to analyze Hamas or looking at this perspective from a specific, unique perspective has come out with an answer that sounds right, to them, and sounds right within the particular context that they're discussing it, but in fact is wrong in terms of an overall picture. And so I'm going to describe each of the blind men. I'm going to describe each of the specific. And since we're in Washington, I'm going to start with the Israeli and US perspective. How is it that Israel and the United States perceive, and two separate ones. I'm not putting them together. How did Israel perceive Hamas? What is Israel's overall goal? current context. Israel wants a pliant Palestinian organization strong enough to keep the ceasefire with Israel, but not strong enough to ultimately challenge Israeli hegemony over Palestinian lives. It needs to be legitimate enough for Israel to deal with so that it could get the ceasefire, but not so legitimate that it could demand negotiations or change the context of the debate by leading a renewed revolution.

John Voll: Now that's a tricky thing for Israel to achieve.

Amjad Atallah: It's looking for a balance. Hamas recognized and Hamas made the same interpretation of Israeli concerns and attempted to actually place itself where it thought Israel would find a quid pro quo, where it thought it could create a quid pro quo with Israel. For the United States, though, something different was wanted. Yes, they wanted a pliant Palestinian organization. It had to be one that pays lip service, though, to secular democratic principles, something that the Israelis never cared about. And it needed to be one that promised nonviolence against Israel and that was willing to accept the creation of an interim state before President Bush leaves office. Now, it needs to be strong enough to fight other Palestinian factions, but not strong enough to fight Israel. It needs to be honest enough to have the support of the majority of Palestinians, but corrupt or cynical enough that it can be compromised by US support. Now again, that's a very tricky balance. And Hamas was not very good, and Hamas still to this day, is not very good at reading American interests. And part of the reason I think that Hamas cannot read American interests is because it follows a simplistic Israel controls America kind of stereotype, that if Israel wants to cut a deal with Hamas, then Israel will tell the United States, we want to cut a deal with Hamas.

John Voll: Don't keep pushing for regime change.

Amjad Atallah: Without recognizing that the United States may have its own interests in the region, that would necessitate the US taking a more ideologically hard-line position than Israel might necessarily have done on its own. So for Israel, what this meant is an ambivalence. For Israel, despite the current violence on the ground, there's still an ambivalence among the Israelis about where Hamas fits in its national strategic interests in the future. For the United States, there's no ambivalence. Hamas needs to be overthrown. This is a specific regime change operation designed to lead to a coup that would overthrow the democratically elected government. And it's that tension... that in many ways has led to a lot of the confusing messages that you keep hearing from Tel Aviv and from Washington and the confusing policies that have resulted in inevitably an escalation of violence. So perspective two, what about from a Palestinian perspective? What about Hamas as a Palestinian national liberation movement? Hamas has adopted

John Voll: the revolutionary rhetoric and methodology of the secular nationalist movements that preceded it.

Amjad Atallah: As Dr. Vol was saying, they started with an Ikhwan Muslimin approach, but then in the late 80s, they decided that they would actually compete head on with the secular nationalist liberation movements, and they would adopt, while they kept the Ikhwan Muslimin approach of grassroots organization and dawah and social services, they would adopt the revolutionary methodologies that were adopted by Fatah, the PFLP, and the DFLP earlier in their careers when they were not so gray-haired.

John Voll: Now, this included effective grassroots organizing.

Amjad Atallah: Voluntary creation of voluntary organizations and charities. A meritocratic leadership structure. Now this is important. Hamas could not have survived until today unless it adopted a meritocratic leadership structure in which every time the Israelis assassinated one of their leaders, they would pick and choose the most qualified leaders to move up into that position. The belief or the assumption of forever leadership or that leadership is due or owed forever being in power because it started the revolution or because it had begun the process has not been one that has yet corrupted Hamas's leadership. They also were very effective in their use of violence against the occupying power, including the use of illegal violence. Now I say illegal violence, I'm a lawyer, and of course I want to just, I want to explain, you understand the difference between legitimate acts against an occupying power and illegitimate acts against non-combatants. Hamas was very good at using illegitimate attacks against non-combatants, as well as occasionally using those against military targets. And it would appear that Hamas may be, and is still debating, in the future when it resorts to wide-scale violence, whether it's going to use the illegal or whether it's going to use the more legal. Now, Hamas also was able to make a connection between the use of violence and specific political aims. Now, I'm saying all of this, and I'm not discussing Fatah, but in each one of these categories, Fatah failed. In the current period, in the modern period, effective grassroots organizing, Fatah stopped doing it. It felt it didn't need to do it. In effect, the Oslo process for Fatah was treated as if victory had been achieved. Voluntary organizations and charities. Actually, Fattah, under Chairman Arafat's leadership, had always used the patronage system, in which the leadership of Fattah provided patronage to individuals, to organizations, and to groups. groups and that patronage was meant to buy loyalty. The idea though of having voluntary organizations and charities that provided services once the PLO was no longer the recipient of largesse from the Gulf states and from tax money that was collected from Palestinian salaries in the Gulf states. They simply stopped. They couldn't find an alternative. They didn't understand how to fundraise. If they couldn't get that money from Saudi Arabia or from Kuwait or from Qatar, they couldn't figure out then how to do it. Oslo was the next logical step, and they attempted to effectively create a welfare state through the Oslo process. to compensate for what they used to do before, but they did it so inefficiently that Palestinians didn't give them credit for it. Meritocratic leadership structure. Obviously, there are still people in Fatah who believe that if you started in Fatah, you should die in Fatah. You should be the leader that is with the organization from beginning to end. And that it's absolutely necessary that young blood not be allowed to move up into the leadership structure. That was one of the primary reasons Hamas won the election. Fatah kept having that fight between itself as to who is going to be the Fatah list.

John Voll: Are we going to allow young people to be in the list?

Amjad Atallah: Are we going to have primaries? Are we not going to have primaries? Are we going to allow people that have allegations of corruption against them to be running, et cetera, et cetera. Effective, if occasionally, illegal use of violence. Well, Fatah decided to turn a blind eye to the Al-Aqsa martyrs brigades But their use of violence wasn't connected to a political aim. Their use of violence was actually connected to competing with Hamas. Hamas was using violence for a very specific aim, to overthrow the PA. As long as Arafat was alive, Hamas did not believe that it could deal inside the PA. So the goal was the overthrow of the PA. And so the use of violence was directed at Israel in order for Israel to have the excuse to dismantle the PA for Hamas. So Israel's attacks, you'll have to remember, for the majority of the Intifada were not against Hamas. They were against the Palestinian Authority. And so Hamas would attack Israel, Israel would attack the PA, PA being Fatah. That weakened Fatah considerably, it weakened the PA considerably, and it allowed Hamas to fill the vacuum. When Fatah used the violence, they weren't using it very strategically, they weren't using it very tactically even. It was simply designed to try to maintain some level of support among the public that could compete with Hamas. Finally, respect for popular will. Hamas is actually very explicit that it respects the concepts of pluralism and democracy. So does Fatah, and so does the DFLP, and so does the DFLP. So on that score, they're all the same. In terms of Hamas's willingness to ascribe to democracy before it was willing to participate in the political system, well, it wasn't. wasn't willing to allow the political system that was in place before it decided to join it to be considered legitimate. Likewise, Fatah, once it lost the election, was no longer willing to consider the political process that led to its ouster as legitimate. So it's hard to judge in the future. We can judge maybe just how deep-seated. We can see with Fatah that, unfortunately, that commitment to democracy and pluralism, at least among the old guard, was not as... deep-seated as we would have liked to have believed. And we can't tell yet from Hamas because support for a democratic system when you're in the ascendancy is easy to do. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the future.

John Voll: Now, the third perspective I want to talk about in the final perspective is Hamas within an Islamist spectrum.

Amjad Atallah: Because in the United States, we tend to lump everybody all together. So from Al-Qaeda to Zarqawi to... Zarqawi's replacement was either in an Egyptian jail or somewhere in Iraq. Everybody's the same. Everybody's part of some global jihadist conspiracy working to undermine the freedoms that we all love and cherish so much.

John Voll: OK, that's a myth.

Amjad Atallah: I mean, that's simply a myth. It's so inaccurate, actually, that it's very dangerous to American national security interests. And I think the people who present that perspective are doing a tremendous disservice to the United States. There is a spectrum among Islamist groups. Hamas and Hezbollah fall firmly within the nationalist side of that spectrum. They fall squarely within the middle to the left. And then you have groups like Al-Qaeda, which go to the right. And I would describe them, at the risk of overgeneralization, as having these differences. For Hamas and Hezbollah, you have nationalist liberation organizations. These are groups which are primarily nationalists. They're nationalists almost before they're Islamists. They have an Islamist worldview within a nation-state system. They accept the nation-state system, and they believe that their responsibility is to struggle within their own particular national context. There are other groups that are post-nationalists. As far as Al-Qaeda is concerned, the struggle is universal and can be fought anywhere. You can take any piece of Iraq if you can. and use it as a base to attack other places. The Ummah is one, and in that sense, it's a very traditional Islamic worldview or Quranic worldview, and Muslims can operate anywhere within it. They're both anti-occupation, but Hamas and Hezbollah accept an international definition of occupation. They accept a Western definition of occupation.

John Voll: As far as Hamas and Hezbollah are concerned,

Amjad Atallah: What's occupied is that which the United Nations Security Council considers occupied. It's that which the international community considers occupied. Therefore, they will comment very directly on the occupation of Israel of the Shaba farms in terms of Hezbollah's concern and Hamas, the occupation of Palestine, and they have made it clear that they generally mean the 1967 borders when they say that. The other groups, however, when they refer to occupation, effectively mean U.S. troop presence or non-Muslim troop presence anywhere in the Muslim world, which is a big difference. Hamas and Hezbollah also fall on the spectrum of respect for democracy in terms of representative government. Maybe not democracy in the sense that We understand it in a Western liberal sense, but even in the United States, apparently, we've moved significantly away from that. The other groups are very authoritarian. So their concepts of government are that there's an authoritarian from top down This is what Islam is. We impose Islam on the people. Hamas and Hezbollah believe very strongly in Dawa that we need to actually proselytize and convince the electorate of the positions that we want them to take and that the way to get them to do what we want them to do is through the ballot box and through the elections. Hamas and Hezbollah also recognize pluralism, that Christianity and Judaism and perhaps other religions, it's unclear because they're not political powers in Palestine or Lebanon, except for the Druze, that these are communities that are respected and have to be within the pluralistic state structure. So Hamas is on record that Palestine will not be an Islamic state. Hamas is on record that Palestine has to be a pluralist state because it has people of different religions in it. Now, Hamas and Hezbollah are also influenced by various madhhabs. Obviously, Hezbollah is Shia and follows the Jafari madhhab, but it actually is respectful of the other madhhabs. Hamas is, at one point, seemed like it was very Hanbali, but has moved away or has tried to distance itself from a specifically Wahhabi perspective. On the right side, though, when you're talking about groups like Al-Qaeda, they're explicitly Wahhabi. They are very, very, in that sense, puritanical. On the middle, again, Hamas-Hezbollah see conflict as a result of continued colonialism. The reason that Hamas and Hezbollah have to fight, the reason they believe that they have to fight, is because the colonial period never ended. It never ended, at least for Lebanon and for Palestine. And therefore, those fights are continuing. However, on the right wing, again, you have Al-Qaeda-type groups that see conflict as an inevitable clash between Muslims and Dar al-Harb, or the land of war. Or if you're in America, you call it the clash of civilizations. And it's a very similar concept, that conflict is inevitable between these two civilizations. And one can only win.

John Voll: And one has to be defeated.

Amjad Atallah: Again, in that sense, there's more of a similarity between some trends of thought in the United States and the right wing on the Islamist spectrum than there is between Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah believe very strongly in grassroots structures, in creating political party bases. On the right wing, you have the idea that, no, you need to use revolutionary cell structures. You cannot create, because of the nature of the revolution, you cannot create grassroots groups, but you have to create revolutionary cell structures of two, three, four people that will operate and do the operations that will create... the change that you hope to change. The Hamas and Hezbollah loathe inter-Muslim conflict, but on the right side, because most Muslims aren't considered Muslims by them, they actually seek inter-Muslim conflict. And groups like Hamas and Hezbollah effectively look to groups like Turkey, actually even more than Iran, in terms of how does an Islamist party, political party, become part of the political establishment, not only in the country, but in the international system.

John Voll: Again, Hamas is on record as saying that Turkey is the model it would most look for in terms of trying to rule. The other groups look to the Taliban as a model, the Taliban basically being Saudi Arabia without the royal family, the idea of Wahhabism as a pure expression of leadership.

Amjad Atallah: So within these different, and I'll finish up here, if you look at Hamas across the spectrum from all these different perspectives, you can see a couple of things, I think. that I think are obvious. I could be wrong, but this is at least my opinion. Hamas has set the foundations. And let me quote an anecdote to you just so you understand how Palestinians perhaps feel about Hamas during this period. As you know, the Israelis have arrested about half the Palestinian cabinet, or arrested would be the wrong word. They haven't been charged with anything. They've taken prisoner or detained half the cabinet and a third of the Palestinian parliament. Now, they're obviously being used as bargaining chips for the release of the Israeli colonel who's being held as a prisoner of war by elements associated with Hamas. Now, Hamas' first request was that Palestinian minors, children, being held without charge by Israel be released and that women being held without charge be released in exchange for information on the Israeli colonel. So the response of a number of the parliamentarians was to issue a statement saying to the government, do not negotiate for us in exchange for the colonel. Still negotiate for the children and for the woman and get them out of jail. If anybody's going to come out of jail, let them come out of jail first. They've been in jail forever. Let them go out of jail. We can stay in jail and we can be released later. Now, regardless of even if you think that that's a cynical political ploy, imagine if you're a Palestinian how your opinion of Hamas and of the Hamas elected officials that you've elected who are now in jail who are saying, no, leave us in jail, get the children out. You can imagine the effect and the impact that that has on the Palestinian public vis-a-vis the position that the Palestinian executive branch has taken which many Palestinians associate rightly or wrongly with support for the regime change option. Now, so what does this all mean at the end of the day? I think that Hamas has set the foundations for its own survival regardless of whether the choice is to allow them to govern or to allow them to fight. Those are the two options that Hamas has presented to the West, and it's very clear to Israel. You either allow us to govern and we keep a ceasefire, or you don't allow us to govern and we fight. And in either category, Hamas thinks it will survive. And I believe that it has set the foundations for its survival at least better than Fatah has.

John Voll: So they will outlive Fatah. through this process.

Amjad Atallah: Now, the weakening of Hamas does not lead to the strengthening of Fatah.

John Voll: The weakening of Hamas will not strengthen secular nationalists.

Amjad Atallah: There's a historic process at play here. These movements have been working and have effectively created a new welter shung in the Middle East, and they're not going to disappear overnight. secular nationalism is going to have to work equally hard and over an equally long period of time to reestablish itself in the Middle East. The concept of an interim state idea, which is a U.S. policy goal, will fail without Hamas. And a negotiated end of conflict deal, which is Fatah's goal, will fail without Hamas. So Hamas has made itself indispensable to the short-term goals of the Bush administration and the Olmert administration, but it has also made itself indispensable to the long-term goals of Fatah. And regional instability will result from attempts to overthrow elected and popular governments, but not because of the whole concept of the Arab street rising up and that kind of 1960s language and rhetoric that we used to use, that's not going to happen. It's not the Arab street that is outraged, but it's not going to rise up and overthrow their own governments because of what's happening in Palestine or even because of what's going to happen in Lebanon in the next couple of weeks. It's because Hezbollah and Hamas have developed strong popular bases and strong alliances regionally within each other's groups. It's not a coincidence that every step that Fatah took when it was in power in an attempt to get to negotiations was not necessarily linked with what Egypt was doing or what Jordan was doing or what Syria or Lebanon Hamas is linking its steps with what's happening with regional players. Hezbollah's attack today can probably be construed as being linked to what's happening in the Gaza Strip, and the linkages that have been created will lead to increased instability from attempts to overthrow both Hamas or Hezbollah.