Is This the Way to Palestine? Hamas and the Contested Road to Statehood

Abstract

Hamas's 2006 election victory dramtically altered the political environment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). For the first time in the Arab worlkd, an Islamist movement had won government by participating in free and fair elections. Hamas's electoral success reshaped not only its role in Palestinian politics, but also the way by which it is perceived in the OPT, the Arab Middle East and the broader international community. Yet, the bulk of academic analyses of Hamas tend to be located within the security rubric, portraying it as a terrorist movement that is determined to disrupt the security of the Israeli state and the relative stability provided by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA). The post-2006 political environment has rendered this analytical framework problematic, necessitating an alternative persepctive to examine the shifts in political behaviour within Hamas. The thesis employs the Inclusion-Moderation hypothesis to analyse Hamas's performance in government and the development of implementation of a dual resistance strategy. Focusing om Hamas's quest for legitimacy and Palestinian statehood, the thesis examines the constellation of domestic and external forces that have reshaped its aims, political and policy stances and ideational shifts.