In December 2011, Republican politician Newt Gingrich got into trouble for making the following statement:
“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community.”
The sensible point that was made in response was that all nationalisms are, in a sense, invented. Further, all nationalisms are mutable over time, and not all nationalisms are identical. Moreover, nationalisms tend to be cemented by a shared experience, particularly a traumatic one. If there was only a weak Palestinian nationalism – distinct from an Arab or Muslim identity – prior to 1948, there is a strong one now. If there was only a weak Israeli identity, prior to the experience of genocide and expulsion from Europe and the Arab world in the 1940s and 50, there is a strong on now.
So, to the extent that Gingrich’s observation was true, it was trivial. He cannot have been surprised that so many found it offensive, to boot.
What, then, should we make of the following declaration from Fathi Hammad, Hamas’ Minister of the Interior and of National Security:
Allah be praised, we all have Arab roots, and every Palestinian, in Gaza and throughout Palestine, can prove his Arab roots – whether from Saudi Arabia, from Yemen, or anywhere. We have blood ties. So where is your affection and mercy?
[…]
Personally, half my family is Egyptian. We are all like that. More than 30 families in the Gaza Strip are called Al-Masri [“Egyptian”]. Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis.
Who are the Palestinians? We have many families called Al-Masri, whose roots are Egyptian. Egyptian! They may be from Alexandria, from Cairo, from Dumietta, from the North, from Aswan, from Upper Egypt. We are Egyptians. We are Arabs. We are Muslims. We are a part of you.
Allah Akbar. All praise to Allah. Allah Akbar.
From Hamas’ ideological perspective, the suggestion that Palestinians are Egyptians, Saudis and Yemenis is not a particularly shocking one. Hamas is an organisation which is pan-Islamist, and which works for the ‘revival’ of an Ummah-wide Caliphate, bound by single religious identity. The notion of an Arab and indeed a Palestinian identity is not irrelevant to Hamas. Indeed, the organisation speaks of “three circles” which have a role to play “struggle against Zionism”: the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle and the Islamic circle. It is simply that the Islamic circle is the most important and all-embracing of the three.
Note, however: Hamas’ focus is not on Palestinian nationhood, underpinned by the right to self-determine. Rather, it is premised upon the notion that “the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day”. In other words, what matters is the religious-legal status of the land itself, not the manner in which its people choose to self-define.
Hamas’ emphasis of land rather than people is also the reason that it cannot possibly reach a permanent peace with Israel. As the organisation explains:
It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?
Does any of this matter?
Practically speaking, the views of Hamas trump those of actual Palestinians. The organisation controls Gaza, which it rules with an iron fist. However, as a matter of principle, what counts is how Palestinians define themselves. Some will certainly regard themselves first and foremost as Muslims, and wish to be part of an ever-broader and ever-closer Caliphate. Others – including those who are not Muslims, or Islamists – may define themselves as part of the Arab nation. However, regarding yourself as part of a larger grouping doesn’t mean that you cannot also cherish a regional national identity, and want to be ruled by your own elected politicians: and not by Egyptians or Israelis.
That said, Hamas is in a very poor position to make the argument for Palestinian nationhood, because they don’t really believe in it. They would be just as happy to see Palestine in union with Egypt and Jordan, as to see an independent Palestinian state. That is because their only policy is the subjugation, murder and expulsion of Jews from Israel.
