Hamas, which recently celebrated its 22nd birthday, has grown up quite quickly: what began as a clandestine group of activists determined to form an Islamic resistance movement out of a previously quiescent Muslim Brotherhood is now a governing party in Gaza and a major focus of international attention. But having achieved such success, the movement’s leaders now find themselves confronted with difficult choices about their priorities. Hamas’s leaders have promised their followers that they can resist Israel, govern Gaza and reform Palestinian society along Islamic lines. But those goals increasingly pull the movement in very different directions. Since its startling triumph in Palestine’s January 2006 elections and especially since its seizure of power in Gaza in June 2007, Hamas is showing signs of strain over which path to emphasise.
One set of goals emphasises the group’s Islamist agenda. The Muslim Brotherhood, since its founding in Egypt 80 years ago, has always emphasised reforming the individual and society according to Islamic dictates. For many years, Palestinian members of the Muslim Brotherhood emphasised personal and social reform at the expense of politics and the national struggle; Palestine could be liberated, they held, only after it had become more thoroughly Islamic. Hamas was founded by Brotherhood activists frustrated with such passivity and tired of being taunted by secular Palestinian nationalists who accused the Islamists of contributing nothing to the liberation struggle. The founders of Hamas insisted that there was no need to postpone resistance: they could take direct action against the Israeli occupation while pursuing the Islamisation of Palestinian society.
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