Since the events of the September 11, a lot of work has been made about terrorist organizations and Islamism. In my research paper I will examine and analyse the utilisation of Islamic religion by two political parties, the Hamas and the Hezbollah, through their political agendas, and I will try to show that these two groups are islamist but not terrorist. The definition of these groups is a controversial point which can be seen just by looking at how authors describe them differently.
The influence and the creation of Hamas do not generally carry divided ideas through works made. Indeed, like many other authors, Matthew Levitt, who is a specialist of the question of terrorism at the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy, considers Muslim Brotherhood as the main influence of Hamas (30-31). The Muslim Brotherhood is an islamist group which has as credo, “God is our objective, the Quran is our Constitution.”[i] The most controversial points are the definition of its goals and the definition of the status of the group. By studying the goals of Hamas, we notice that this question has several answer s. As Levitt explains it in his book Hamas, the main goal of Hamas is dawa (calling people to God) and thus, he considers Hamas as an islamist group (16). In the article of Andrea Nüsse, who is a report in the Muslim world and who has a diploma in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, reveals another goal. Indeed, for her, the goal of the islamist group Hamas is to liberate the Palestine from the Zionist enemy and to establish an Islamic state because, like she explains, for Muslims, Jerusalem is an important place because according to the Quran, the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) began his ascension to heavens at the Dome of the Rock Al-Aqsa, the Miraj[ii](47). In the article of Roger Gaess with Azzam Tamimi, who is the director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought of London, the Tamimi’s answer of the will of the Hamas is now to have hudna (long-term ceasefire) (23). In another article of Gaess which is Interview from Gaza: What Hamas wants, we learn that with the results of the last Palestinian elections in 2006 which put the Hamas in power, people should understand that Palestinians do not want to waste again a lot of time; they want defined actions. There is another conception of Hamas’ goals. Indeed, the main objective of Hamas is to improve the quality of Palestinians’ life until they would live in freedom (114). In an interview with Sheik Yassin in the same article, Yassin explains that Hamas does not necessary want an Islamic state; people will have to decide this by a democratic process (106). According to Levitt, Hamas is a terrorist organization as the European Union designated it (50). Nüsse, in her case, allocates Hamas as a nationalist party (49). Because she does not explain in what Hamas could be a nationalist party, we do not know if in her mind, nationalism includes religion. Ximena Ortiz, who is an editorial writer for The Washington Times, brings another vision of the reaction sometimes violent the political group. Indeed, she explains that “Arabs and other Muslims understand only the language of force”. On the other hand, it is important to avoid the dichotomic explanation. Erdogan, which is a Muslim leader in Turkey, considers that a political party should not be armed; weapons are reserved to security forces. Concerning the armed wing of the Hamas, Gaess reports in his article Interview from Gaza: What Hamas wants that this wing is separated from the political part, and acts depending on Hamas declaration (105). Ortiz explains in his article that islamist groups like Hamas has often a negative image despite that they “have been adept at folding modern political ideology-nationalism, self-determination, free-markets” (1). He adds that people prefer islamist groups instead of liberal groups and he gives two factors could explain this behaviour: first the fear that the liberal party becomes ally of the United States if they reach the power. Second, the way less strict that liberals interpret the religion (1). The particularities in the relation of Islam and politics it is that, according to the author, Islam is more seen as an identity than a will to follow strictly the religion. The same scenario could be seen for Hezbollah
Like for Hamas, there are many definitions to describe Hezbollah. Homayra says in his article Hezbollah- Terrorist Group or Political Party that this organization is “broad-based political party.” He remains the fact that Hezbollah “has not been involved in deliberate attacks on civilians since the end of the civil war” (1). According to Elaine Pasquini’s article, “Hezbollah is a multidimensional organization which has political and social aspects”. Neil MacFarquar, the correspondent of The New York Times in Middle East, designs Hezbollah as a militant organization contrary to the United States which consider Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The goals of Hezbollah seem also to differ from an author to another. In the article of Andrew Arsan, we can read that at its beginning, Hezbollah wanted to create an Islamic state (12). MacFarquhar in his article, which has a great and clear timeline of the shia story, says that since Hassan Nasrallah is the leader of the Hezbollah, the group has less pan Arab and Pan Islamic aspects. Contrary to some others authors, this one shows that Hezbollah has not a unilateralist shia vision. Nasrallah said that the question of Shia or Sunni is personal. The author says that the reason why Hezbollah does not want to delete his military wing, the Islamic resistance, is that there is still an occupation of the Lebanon by Israel. The question often asked is if Hezbollah has a solid support. One of the reasons of the support to Hezbollah, according to MacFarquhar, is that its leader is not corrupted and comes from modest family. In an article of Africa research bulletin, we see that people even pray for Hezbollah because Hassan Nasrallah is the only Arab leader who strands up face to Israel and the United States. 75 academic, political leaders and workers of Egyptian government support Hezbollah. People, in Middle East, feel that their leaders “fall asleep”. Many sunnit support Iran which is shia just because this country is going on its own way, not conducted by the United States (16733). Graham Fuller, who is a member of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, declares in his article that even if Hezbollah seems to have a religious motivation, the real motivation of this political party is anger. He adds that they want to end the domination and the humiliation of the Muslim world (35). Indeed people do not care of which branch of Islam Hezbollah belongs to. One important proof is that even in Iran, there is a Pan Arab and pan Islamic position (36). According to Nathan Gardels, politics is something local. Thus the best way to understand Hezbollah and also Hamas, it is to convey world leaders to speak with the terms of these two parties. This way, it will be easier to make a difference between “local resistance” and “terror group”. He adds that even if Hezbollah is shia and is an ally of Iran that do not mean that they are the same (5).
Ronald Nettler, in his article, affirms that for islamist groups, Islam is a, “particular sort of polity and society, through which religion is most perfectly expressed in accord with the divine will” (50). For him, any Islamic government form exists and the Quran could not be use as a constitution simply because Quran is not a constitution. The author even says that islamist groups of today bring and coerce Muslim to follow “rigid political arrangement […] with some of tradition’s now irrelevant” (55). In Salwa Ismail article, we read that again Islam is the first concept of identity, and then gender, class and national identity are secondary (615). She also tries to show that Islamists try to make a unity with politics and religion. She compares the influence of Islamic faith on political groups in Middle East to the “Moral Majority” in the United States. What is now going on in these societies is redefinition of the place of religion in politics (617). Despite all these information, there are still subject which are published by academic journals.
Indeed, there are researches about Hezbollah and Hamas. There are researches about Islamism; however, there seem to have no research done the impact of Islamic faith on Hezbollah and on Hamas’s politics, which it will be my research paper’s thesis statement. The subject, as we saw, brings a lot of controversial issues like to usually simple task to define an organization. Moreover, because the subject touches political and religious aspect, some author could have a biased approach. What could be interesting it to see the way the subject is treated by Muslim and Arabic authors. I say this because I read that the term Islamism was invented in Western to analyse the Muslim world and thus, the term is maybe not used by Muslim and Arabic authors.
e their lands. The fact that you disagree or agree does not prevent that it is their rights. Discussion is rather on the way used to achieve their goals, but again we should ask us: Have they other choice? I could be interessting to see what people think about it.
