ANALYSIS [Ramallah] Colorful, tall billboards covered with Quranic quotes and calls for religious causes, frequent street riots, attacks on Internet coffees and shops selling pop music and the abduction of foreign journalists are frequent reminders of the shift toward the daily indoctrination of Palestinian people into the culture of confrontation, violence, and in some cases, Jihadism.
Since the unexpected victory of Hamas in the January 25, 2006 elections, Palestinians have been exposed to an unprecedented campaign of mobilization toward radicalism. The challenge of winning the hearts and minds of young Palestinians has helped radicalism to overshadow voices of logic, moderation and coexistence.
Subsequently, the Palestinian areas have turned into fertile ground for more extreme and possibly radically minded upcoming generations. The society has become aggressive and prone to confrontation stemming from deep-rooted feelings of frustration, isolation and disorientation.
“Radical ideologies have outperformed national identity, tolerance and coexistence,” says Dr. Jihad Hamaid, a prominent political analyst based in Gaza.
Ironically, the prospects for peace initiated by the Oslo Accords came under attack from slogans of extremism, denial of the other and an exaggerated sense of righteous self, he says. These are indicators of the existence of latent conflicts which generate higher waves of pro-extremism and anti-Western culture.
The driving force behind all this transformation has been the ideology of resisting Western values and culture. Mosques have become bastions fueling extremism and resentment toward Western policies and traditions.
“The Islamic mobilization through mosques advocates the idea that Palestine was a Muslim land, and the number of mosques has jumped from 200 to 600 in Gaza in three years,” says Hamaid
In recent months the incidences of abduction of foreign journalists and the bombing of Internet cafes and shops selling pop music have intensified in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian security officials say they suspect a secret "vice squad” of Muslim militants.
“These are small extremist groups exploiting the current anarchical situation to target such aspects of modernization as Western values,” says Lt. Muhammad Abu Dwaba, head of the Detective Security Apparatus in Gaza.
Besides the widespread tendency toward radicalism, a new trend of Hijabism (wearing head coverings) has arisen among women. More girls have opted for wearing their headscarves as strong signs of a deep-rooted identity.
“This is a good example of how language could serve the ideology, especially in a society that drew no boundaries between the state and the mosque,” adds Abu Dwaba.
These were some examples of the interpretations that revealed the unpredictability and magnitude of the sweeping victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement in the Palestinian general election held on January 25, 2006.
Islamic movements have a long view. They have maintained a rather exceptional character of slow policy alignment to the new reality, careful tactical planning and reliance on its deep roots. They move, but they move slowly.
“It’s the carrot and stick policy… that is, the punishment and rewarding to generate supporters. This is what Hamas has been doing and now it is viewed much more through the prism of non-corruption and social welfare,” Hamaid explains.
Obviously, the movement took the welfare role from the PLO and gradually developed the reputation of the party that serves the people.
One other goal was to counter what was perceived as secularization and Westernization of the Palestinians and other Arabs.
People, particularly youngsters, are finding ideological alternatives in Islamic groups and their calls for a violent struggle against anything that threatens Islam, according to an Islamic moderate preacher in the Strip, who asked not to be named.
In his study “Socio-economic Roots of Middle East Radicalism,” Alan Richards observes that: "Youth politics always and everywhere focuses not merely on material goods but also on questions of identity, justice, and morality."
Hamas' new status not only brought merit to the combination of the three components of “injustice,” “agency” and “identity” in its optimistic repertoire of change but also embedded the echo of the newly achieved goals in the ballots such as “rule of democracy” and “will of the people.”
Many political analysts also believe that the stagnation of the Quartet's (the U.S., the U.N., the EU and Russia) vision of peace has widened the scope of public resentment and blame, not only toward the United States but also toward Britain and other European nations.
The West must make a positive contribution to long-term stability in the Middle East region and engage on behalf of democratic policies, which create a space for civil society that includes religion.
Such policies must address a multitude of obstacles to democracy in the region, notably political and social disenfranchisement, economic dysfunction and disillusionment.
“Otherwise, if this trend remains unchallenged, the ramifications will be endless, and may embroil the region in more extremism and chaos,” Hamaid concludes.