This is an excerpt from an issue paper by Hussein Ibish for the American Taskforce on Palestine.

This is certainly not the first time in history that elements of the left have come around the back end of the political circle into an open embrace of the far-right - an embrace, one should note, that is almost never returned except through a kiss of death. In the Middle Eastern context, consider what happened to the leftist groups that promoted the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, who was seemingly a model of "pluralism and democracy" until he consolidated his power and began executing his former allies. The case of Khomeini and Iran also reminds us that no less than Michel Foucault, one of the most brilliant and influential intellectuals of the second half of the 20th century, could be seduced by the appeal of radical politics of this kind (see, for example, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism by Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, University Of Chicago Press, 2005. And see here for Edward Said on the Iranian Revolution). Foucault's misguided support for the Iranian revolution still stands as an outstanding example of how badly mistaken even the most perceptive and keen minds - let alone lesser ones - can become when emotion clouds judgment and human values are discarded in favor of the thrall of extreme.

In this case, left-wing enthusiasm for the far-right Hamas is symptomatic of a wider and troubling phenomenon in Arab political culture. The left-wing movements and governments that dominated much of the Arab scene from at least the 1940s to the late 1970s have generally fallen into serious disrepair, in some cases all but vanishing, or at least becoming of marginal relevance. No Arab government today has a legitimately leftist look or feel about it. Certainly the main opposition movements and parties in every Arab society now are Islamist of one stripe or another. This has been increasingly true for more than two decades.

So, in as much as it does still exist, the Arab left unfortunately is neither the government nor the opposition, but rather a bit player with limited popular support, consisting mainly of handfuls of journalists, intellectuals and lonely reformers (the last often languishing in prisons). In this wilderness, some of the Arab left has allowed itself to be lured into an ideologically compromised position, and drawn into false binaries that lead to an otherwise inexplicable alignment with reactionary theocratic forces. Of course, there are still many pockets and centers of bona fide leftist thinking and values in the Arab world, and it is in these remaining enclaves of secularism and liberalism that much of the hope for the future of the region resides.

But the fact is that far too much of the Arab left has abandoned, or had stripped away from it, most of its traditional values. These missing elements include class analysis and a materialist program for social change, secularism and iconoclasm, feminism and the cause of women's rights, internationalism and other key aspects of its erstwhile political agenda. The only aspect of its traditional program that seems to have survived the implosion of the Arab left movement intact is the impulse of ethno-centric Arab nationalism, suspicion of the West and hatred of Israel.

As a consequence, some of the Arab left now finds itself reading politics mainly through a lens of an ethnic, at times almost tribal, nationalism. But the mantle of oppositional and revolutionary nationalism is now worn almost exclusively by Islamist groups, though their rhetoric usually mixes religious categories and formulations with nationalistic ones. The Islamists claim to resist the West, a hostile imperial order and subservient regional governments, and use analogous language to denounce the same conditions, policies and alliances that provoke nationalist outrage on the left.

Moreover, many Islamist opposition groups conduct themselves strategically in the image-ideal of left parties, while the Arab left itself does not. This involves constituting the main opposition to governments and the main revolutionary movements in all Arab societies, providing direct services to the people, rhetorical populism, extensive use of violence for revolutionary purposes, organizing both in open political party structures and underground cells, and above all nationalist goals and rhetoric, especially opposition to Israel, the United States and the West, and the regional order in the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, since it is a regional network of aligned parties with a clear and consistent ideology, closely resembles a Leninist revolutionary movement in purely formal terms, although not at all in ideological content. These and other factors have lured some on the Arab left to adopt a stance not only in support of theocratic and reactionary forces but also to develop an attitude of admiration, at times even envy, towards them.

Thus Islamist positions on national and international issues can appear not only acceptable but even appealing to some on the Arab and Arab-American left. What gets lost or ignored in the process is the reactionary, repressive and theocratic agenda of these far right-wing religious movements and their clearly stated political and social policies. The case of Hamas, which is in effect the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, is perhaps the most striking recent example in which some leftist commentators have rushed to lionize such a movement, champion its attempts to seize power and denounce its rivals in the strongest imaginable terms, all in apparent total indifference to its actual policies and goals.


What have these commentators been saying and why are they wrong?

Perhaps the most strident Arab-American voice of this kind has been Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad. Similar sentiments have been expressed by two noted left-of-center bloggers, As'ad AbuKhalil of California State University, Stanislaus, who runs the aptly named Angry Arab blog, and Ali Abunimah (a former co-author of mine) as well as some other writers on his Electronic Intifada website.

In two well-circulated articles in the Egyptian English-language newspaper al-Ahram Weekly, Massad drew an extended analogy that compared Hamas to the deposed and murdered Chilean leftist President Salvador Allende, and Fateh to the fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet - oblivious to the absurdity of comparing an overtly theocratic and reactionary movement to a progressive one. When someone comes to the point of looking at Khaled Mishaal and seeing Salvador Allende, their moral and political compass may be so badly broken that there is little hope of them ever finding their way back.

Pushing a similar analogy, Abunimah has repeatedly compared Fateh and the PLO to the Nicaraguan contras, as if these groups were simply the fabrications of US intelligence services for the purpose of overthrowing a revolutionary government, arguing, "This is a repeat strategy of the contras. These are Palestinian contras."

Rather than seeing the obvious faults on both sides, these writers have placed one hundred percent of the blame for the conflict between Hamas and Fateh on the latter, heaping the most damning criticisms on the secular nationalists while praising the Islamists at almost every turn and attempting to paint them as a temperate and moderate organization. All three insist that the division is not between secularists and Islamists, but rather between a gang of traitors versus the defenders of Palestine. As Abunimah put it, "the split among Palestinians today is not between Hamas and Fatah, nor between 'extremist' or 'moderate', or 'Islamist' or 'secular', but between the minority who have cast their lot in with the enemy as collaborators on the one hand, and those who uphold the right and duty to resist on the other."

Writing in the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, now the Arabic-language home of choice for such sentiments, Massad declared, "the supporters of Hamas, whether believers or atheists or secularists or Islamists, are the supporters of the real Palestinian democracy because Hamas's struggle is a struggle against dictatorial traitors (under the legal definition of treason)" [translations from Mideastwire.com]. To deal with the crisis in Palestinian politics, Massad's agenda boils down simply to accusations, accusations and more accusations: "The only antidote to these forces of true darkness is to continue to support and mobilise for Palestinian democracy and to expose the anti-democracy coup leaders and their apologist intellectuals for what they are: collaborators with the enemy."

Massad passionately defended Hamas' extremely violent takeover of Gaza, claiming that Fateh had "pushed it into a corner in the hope of slaughtering all its leadership in Gaza" and that therefore Hamas "could not but defend itself against their final onslaught." Fateh is painted as simply an agent of Israel and the United States. Massad refers to what he calls the "Fateh leadership's complete collaboration and subservience to Israeli interests," and "Palestinian collaborators with the enemy: the Fatah leadership abetted by the United States," who supposedly have an "overall strategy to destroy Palestinian democracy." In May, 2006, AbuKhalil urged Hamas to "to pre-empt their enemies if they want to rule," anticipating the bloody scenes in Gaza a year later. For his part, Abunimah has gone so far as to accuse Fateh of waging a "war against the Palestinian people."

Massad uses a rather shop-worn technique in his al-Ahram articles bashing Fateh and the PLO by selecting a derogatory phrase and repeating it endlessly. In the first piece in which he introduced his Hamas=Allende equation, Massad used variations on the phrase "Fateh thugs" at least seven times. In the second, he included variations of "Fateh putschists" (a phrase presumably chosen to make them sound like Nazis) no less than 13 times, with four references to "coup plotters" thrown in for good measure.

While every effort is made to paint Fateh and the Palestinian secular nationalists in the worst possible light, Hamas is presented as the champion of democracy and a model of moderation and flexibility. Massad really seems convinced that Hamas - whose stated goal is the establishment of a theocratic Islamic state - is committed to genuine pluralistic democracy because it defends its position on the basis of a 44% win in one parliamentary election. In another al-Akhbar article, Massad sarcastically contrasted "the dictatorial light of Fatah against the democratic darkness of Hamas."

Massad takes every opportunity to create the impression that Hamas and democracy are organically linked, calling them variously "the Palestinian democratic government" and "the democratically elected Hamas," as if Mahmoud Abbas did not win a Presidential election by 63% of the vote, and every opinion poll did not continue to give some edge or other to Fateh in Palestinian popular support. And as if Hamas were really committed to pluralism and democracy as a long term vision for the state they seek to establish.

A further irony is that some of these same writers cast serious doubts on the importance and validity of Palestinian elections when Fateh - and not Hamas - emerged victorious.

When it was obvious that Abbas was about to be elected Palestinian president in January 2005, Abunimah's website published an article arguing that "the elections are a liability for the Palestinians" and another quite rightly pointing out that "Palestine can never experience true democracy while it remains under occupation." Abunimah himself argued that, "the Israeli occupation makes democracy impossible." After the election, numerous articles on the site charged "fraud" and various other condemnations of the process, which was run by the same commission that oversaw the subsequent sacrosanct parliamentary elections won by Hamas.

Then in February 2005, Abunimah's site published an article entitled "The False Promise of Western Democracy" which claimed that the election of Abbas "added to a growing worldwide skepticism about Western notions of democracy (i.e. institutionalized suffrage, parliamentary procedures, etc.)" The article argued that, "the value of Western democracy is questionable for the Palestinian people" and condemned the international community for "an invasive imposition of democratic practices" on the Palestinians. There were no articles to this effect on the Electronic Intifada website following the Hamas parliamentary victory in 2006.

Not only does this rhetoric cast Hamas as the last, best hope for Palestinian democracy, its supposed moderation, pluralism, pragmatism and flexibility - all features glaringly absent from its actual policies and conduct - are celebrated as well. Abunimah thinks "Hamas leaders have made exemplary statements in favor of pluralism, genuine democracy, and the rule of law" and that "from the moment it won the elections Hamas had tried to be pragmatic and flexible." He argues that, "Hamas has continued to react to Abbas' escalating war with equanimity." Massad claims that the scenes of looting and violence in Gaza were much more contained than in the West Bank, a patently untrue assertion, and that in contrast to Fateh, "Hamas brought looting and disorder by some of its members under control within days." In the build-up to the conflict, he praised Hamas as "wisely adamant that it will respond by force only when Fateh launches an all-out war," and as ready to "defend the rights of the Palestinians to resist the Israeli occupation."

Abunimah recently opined that, "We know what Hamas is against, but no one is clear what it is for." In fact, Hamas has been very clear and consistent in what it stands for, both rigidly and inflexibly. This has been one of its principal sources of appeal in contrast to the flexibility and ambiguity that Fateh and PLO leaders needed to cultivate given that they were serious about trying to negotiate a deal with Israel that required room to maneuver. Hamas has been unequivocal since its founding in stating plainly that its aim is to establish an Islamic state, along the lines generally outlined by the Muslim Brotherhood movement, from the river to the sea, that is in all of mandatory Palestine. What happens to the Jews, Christians and atheists under such circumstances is not clear, but they will at best have to submit to living in an "Islamic society," whatever that might mean in practice. Following the bloody expulsion of Fateh from Gaza, Hamas fighters in many instances removed the Palestinian flags from atop government and other buildings and instead hoisted the "Islamic" green party banner of Hamas, a dramatic demonstration that the priorities of some Hamas leaders and members emphasize its religious ideology and the regional agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood movement over Palestinian national identity and goals.

Hamas also seeks, perhaps even as a primary aim, to "Islamize" Palestinian Muslim society along ultraconservative and salafist Brotherhood lines. As a small reminder to some of its Arab-American admirers about what this religious-right social agenda means, let us recall that the Hamas government's foreign minister, Mahmoud Zahar, told an astonished Wolf Blitzer of CNN in his first post-election interview that an "Islamic" society in Palestine was needed because a "secular system allows homosexuality, allows corruption, allows the spread of the loss of natural immunity, like AIDS. We are here living under Islamic control." In 2005, the same gentleman condemned dancing between men and women, and castigated "homosexuals and lesbians, a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick." Meanwhile, Hamas' education minister banned a book of folkloric tales because of its "immoral" references to romance.

This crystal-clear but extreme agenda may well have been a net plus to Hamas when it stood in opposition and in contrast to the governing Fateh and the PLO. But after the election victory in 2006, these policies meant that the new Palestinian government was unable to deal not only with the West but also with most of the Arab states as well. Hamas was urged to moderate its policies on three crucial fronts: to formally renounce deliberate attacks against civilians, to agree (as all other governments must) to abide by the treaty obligations undertaken by its predecessors, and to state a willingness to negotiate an end to the occupation based on mutual recognition with Israel in accordance with international law and a mountain of UN Security Council resolutions beginning with Resolution 242. Hamas adamantly refused to take any such steps, preferring to stick with its well-established positions (i.e. "what it is for") and remain the not-ready-for-prime-time government. The people of Palestine, especially in Gaza, are continuing to pay the price.

Certainly some Hamas leaders made conciliatory or positive statements from time to time, but these were almost always immediately contradicted by other party leaders, and no formal policy changes have been enacted since the election. The result was that Palestinians were left for more than a year with a government incapable of forming essential diplomatic relations with much-needed allies or conducting a viable strategy for liberation. Ultimately, it strongly contributed to the current disastrous political sundering.

The explanation these commentators offer for Fateh's policies and its opposition to Hamas is not the need for a workable strategy to end the occupation or an honest difference of political and ideological opinion, but willful wickedness and a lust for power and money at the expense of the Palestinian people. Singled out for especial condemnation has been the beloved Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who has had the temerity to remain a secular nationalist and opponent of Hamas and Islamist groups in general. Massad frankly accuses Darwish of being a prostitute: "Perhaps Mahmoud Darwish's recent poem in support of the coup published on the front page of the Saudi newspaper Al-Hayat, can be explained by the monthly checks he receives from the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority, and he is not alone." In al-Akhbar Massad elaborated on this theme, claiming "Those secularists who support dictators and colonizers are mainly interested in living the good life provided to them by the treason of Fatah and its corruption and its theft of the money of the Palestinian people to pamper its leaders and intellectuals." So, not only Darwish, but all those who support the secular leadership as opposed to Hamas do so only for the crudest forms of personal gain.

AbuKhalil too has accused Darwish of political prostitution in the harshest terms. He claims that Darwish supports Fateh because the "Oslo regime gave him a nice house in Ramallah," and that "the position of Mahmud Darwish on Oslo became more clear when Arafat bought him an old house in Ramallah, and increased his generosity to him." AbuKhalil blogged that, "I expect him [Darwish] to declare [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert the 'knight of Zionism' any day now," and that his recent poetry reading in Haifa was properly translated, "I want Nobel. Please give me Nobel. I really want Nobel. Please give it to me NOW. If you give me Nobel, I will keep repeating that Arabs are in love with Israeli nuclear weapons."

Darwish, it need hardly be added, has devoted his life to the Palestinian cause. He has provided its main voice in the arena of international arts and letters, acting as both its conscience and articulate consciousness. His writing enjoys a deserved and unequalled respect among the Palestinians and other Arabs. He has embodied an attachment to the land, and a will to resist occupation while voluntarily returning to Ramallah to live under its rigors. He could easily be living in the comfort and security of New York or California if he so chose.

These hyperbolic, hyper-personalized and low-blow attacks on Darwish typify the style and substance of the approach to Palestinian politics that has been developed by the leftist and secular defenders of Hamas. It is all about condemning other Palestinians, Arabs and their supporters in the harshest imaginable terms as traitors, quislings, collaborators and prostitutes. It is worth noting that in some contexts these accusations could well constitute an incitement to violence. After all, what is typically done to traitors and collaborators, especially those who are condemned not just rhetorically but, as Massad put it, "under the legal definition of treason?" One has to wonder what these commentators think all of this can possibly accomplish.

Read the rest here.