NOVANEWS
M. came over and discussed the Hamas government. “They are occupying the culture,” he told me. “Our grandparents used to dance Dabka together, boys and girls, now this is forbidden. What is Hamas doing?” I mentioned that girls had been forbidden from clapping and smoking shisha in cafes on New Year’s Eve.* He said this was terrible, and that “Anyone who likes Hamas, gets money from them. Hamas pays for their schools, pays for their food, and gives them something. Almost no one likes Hamas.” He was referring to the strong Hamas social welfare regime.
Hamas also pays for mourner’s tents for poor families. M.M. also complained about some NGO leaders: “They sit in Beach and Badia [two comparatively expensive restaurants in Gaza City], they don’t come to our protests, they don’t come to the non-violent protests in the buffer zone, they write letters…what are they doing? They are visible in the media.” But they don’t put themselves on the line: “If Hamas saw strong men with us, they would retreat, they would fall back.” “This is not our Islam,” he added. Another friend, A., my most radical friend in Gaza, told me, “I don’t like Hamas but I hate the left the most…do you think if we had a good left, if Fateh was not corrupt, anyone would have supported Hamas?
At least Hamas is in the camps with the people. The leftists’ children study in Europe, they pass easily through Rafah.” He was practically yelling when he said this to me, and his fury was clear. He lives with the consequences of the left’s failure.
Haniyeh lives–or at least maintains a residence–in a camp. It’s easy to hate Hamas: for liberals, for conservatives, even for radicals, they’re religious, conservative, authoritarian in manner. But also facile. The leftist and secular parties failed in Palestine, and the Islamists embedded with the people. If we want a Palestinian left (forget religion, that’s not the point) we better gets our hands filthy building the civil society links that are the only thing we can do to affect internal social dynamics. And we better quit judging. A. has it right.
*Compare to this article–http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11714.shtml–either deceitful or idiotic, as if it matters.
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