作者Joseph Massad （巴勒斯坦裔的美國學者）再度從反美國帝國主義觀點，描述阿拉伯之春後，為何突尼西亞、埃及等國的穆斯林兄弟會在該國政治占有ㄧ席之地的原因。這在於美國認為伊斯蘭份子(Islamists)的興起，並不會威脅美國在中東地區的利益。就連哈馬斯也因最近敘利亞議題，其政治局成員離開大馬士革，並與伊朗保持距離，轉而尋求卡達的支持，作者認為這是哈馬斯投向美國陣營的表象。（相信哈馬斯領導人不會同意該作者論點。）
作者的論點並非沒有道理，的確若以2006年哈馬斯在巴勒斯坦的勝選與2012年突尼西亞與埃及的穆斯林兄弟會的勝選比較，這些伊斯蘭性質政黨，同樣是在自由與公平的選舉之下勝出，但為何哈馬斯卻遭到以色列與美國的封鎖與打壓，而美國卻默許甚至同意突尼西亞與埃及的穆斯林兄弟會的統治正當性？
不過，作者單純以「反美帝主義」的角度詮釋近來中東地區伊斯蘭份子(Islamist)的興起或是改變，事實上仍有許多討論的空間。
首先，作者堅守「反美帝主義」論點，作為論述伊斯蘭份子轉變的主要依據，卻忽略這些伊斯蘭性質團體本身的論述。以哈馬斯為例，哈馬斯並非反美，美國不是哈馬斯想要打倒的對象，哈馬斯的敵人依舊是以猶太復國主義為立國基礎的以色列。相反地在2006年1月勝選之後，哈馬斯領導階層多次在美國與英國的主流報紙投書，試圖澄清外界對他們的誤解，並尋求西方人士的支持，其目的是呼籲外界正視猶太復國主義對巴勒斯坦人的迫害。
另外自從2005年以色列撤出加薩之後，加薩人民有很大的自主權，雖然在哈馬斯執政之後，以色列封鎖加薩邊界作為報復，並兩次入侵與轟炸加薩，但至今哈馬斯不但沒有垮台，反而渡過極差的環境。在阿拉伯之春之後，情況似乎有利於加薩以及哈馬斯政權。埃及變天之後，同是穆斯林兄弟會為背景的哈馬斯，自然會尋求埃及的支持。再者，哈馬斯離開敘利亞與伊朗的陣營，並不代表脫離反美陣營或是符合美國利益。哈馬斯政治局撤離敘利亞必須考慮敘利亞的整體情勢，才較為客觀。若哈馬斯與黎巴嫩的真主黨ㄧ樣，死忠支持阿薩德政權，忽視該政權屠殺遜尼穆斯林的事實，相信哈馬斯在加薩或是伊斯蘭世界，將會被遜尼穆斯林唾棄，甚至影響在加薩統治的正當性。此外，作者似乎刻意不提之前親阿薩德的民兵在大馬士革砲轟巴勒斯坦難民營的消息。
最後，作者的「反美帝國主義」已經傷害許多伊斯蘭份子的情感。作者似乎有意將不是反美的伊斯蘭份子，全部歸類於符合美國利益的打手。（按此邏輯，反美且殺害許多穆斯林的獨裁者或是恐怖份子應該是作者稱讚的對象）不可否認，在當今全球政治與經濟架構下，美國在中東仍有主導優勢，但這不代表埃及、突尼西亞、巴勒斯坦或是土耳其的伊斯蘭份子，完全沒有主導權或是被當今結構宰制，完全附屬於美國的利益。
近年來，伊斯蘭份子的論述或是政治轉型，乃是過去的路線似乎已經不再適用，因在國內被獨裁者抹黑成洪水猛獸，在國際上被西方視為蓋達組織性質的恐怖組織，於是這些伊斯蘭份子逐漸接受當今國際政治與經濟遊戲規則，在其結構下，參與政治與社會活動，發揮其影響力。然而，作者ㄧ再從反美帝主義的論述出發，指責這些伊斯蘭團體屈服於美國的利益，這種ㄧ味僅以批判角度論述，而未提出任何建議與新的方向，事實上已經陷入薩伊德「東方主義」論述的窠臼，未將該地區的人民與團體視為研究主體，而不斷地將他們視為完全被外來宰制的邊緣團體，或許這也不是作者本身想要關切的核心議題吧～
Hamas and the old/new American crescent
The PA has "very little more to offer" to Israel and the US is the deciding factor in its "survivability or demise".
Last Modified: 21 Aug 2012 10:31
If the outcome of the so-called "Arab Spring" has been the accession to power of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and a similar Islamist movement in Tunisia, and the strengthening of sectarian and tribalist jihadists in the guise of "fighters for democracy" in Libya and Syria (the temporary defeat of the Bahraini and Yemeni peoples' uprisings notwithstanding), the recent admission of Hamas to the ranks of forces that not only do not threaten American interests in the region, but also would like to work to enhance them is a notable transformation.
Qatar has been the mover and shaker in this battle to extend and upgrade the informal international legitimacy that Hamas has in the eyes of the people of the region and Third World allies to the official level of Arab and Western governments. That Hamas, with Qatari support, was the first Islamist party in the Arab world that won a solid electoral victory in 2006 did not serve to grant it the legitimacy it deserved in the eyes of the United States, the most formidable anti-democratic force in the region and the world.
Instead, it galvanised the US, Israel and the collaborationist Palestinian Authority to stage a coup against it to deprive it of that victory. Having understood that the electoral strategy failed to have Hamas replace Fateh at the helm of the PA, Qatar and the top leadership of Hamas realised that the "Arab Spring" offers important new opportunities in this regard.
Slowly but surely, Hamas was pulled out of Syria and is being fully taken out of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance that threatens US-Israeli-Saudi strategy in the region, not only by transferring its top leadership from Damascus to Qatar, but also through a major rehabilitation effort of Hamas in Jordan, whose King Abdullah had exiled members of the Hamas leadership in 1999 on the orders of the US and Israel.
Jordanian electoral politics
As this will spell the accelerated rate at which Hamas will be offering concessions and reassurances to American interests following in the footsteps of Fateh, the PA is becoming most worried about its standing and its increasing dispensability for both Israel and the United States. US-supported and protected Arab dictators have always feared only one type of domestic opposition to their rule, namely opposition groups who offer to serve US imperial interests as loyally as the existing regimes do.
Such fear was always warranted and well-founded, especially in the case of Egypt where the US has been for over a decade and a half courting the Muslim Brothers whose neoliberal businessmen leadershiphad assured the US of full compliance and collaboration with US policies better than even Mubarak could offer (indeed in contrast with the neoliberal right-wing of the Egyptian Brothers led by millionaire Khairat al-Shater, the centrist Abdel al-Moneim Aboul Fotouh was done away with fairly quickly, first by being expelled from the Muslim Brothers and later by losing the elections).
I should note here that the US' openness to what it calls "moderate" Islamists has also been supported by a good number of Zionists and Israeli strategists who have been debating such alliances and their long term costs and benefits for the Jewish settler-colony.
The Fateh-controlled PA, like all other Arab dictatorships, prefers a Hamas that threatens US interests and fears most of all a Hamas that is willing to serve them as well as, if not better, than the PA has. The recent flexibility of Hamas on this question, with the prompting of Qatar, has raised alarm bells in PA corridors. Al Jazeera's revelations about the possible poisoning and murder of Yasser Arafat are hardly incidental to the effort of finishing off the PA, once and for all. The PA's futile bid for UN membership is a last ditch effort to save itself, with ambivalent Saudi backing.
Enter the quagmire of Jordanian electoral politics, and I use the term "electoral" very loosely. Jordan has been witnessing a wide-ranging movement for change for the last year and a half, whose leaders are Transjordanian Jordanians as well as former regime operatives (of all geographic origins) who have fallen out of favour in recent years, or at least have been pushed away from the centre of decision-making.
The majority of Palestinian Jordanians have remained quiescent throughout, terrorised as they are, not only by the ongoing institutionalised government discrimination against them which includes their ongoing unconstitutional denationalisation, but also by the poisonous chauvinism of a substantial segment of Transjordanian nationalists, some of whom call for the denationalisation and expulsion of Palestinian Jordanian citizens from the country outright.
Anti-Palestinian cause
The anti-Palestinian cause in chauvinist Transjordanian circles (on the right or on the left) is so widespread that many of the pro-reform and pro-revolutionary elements leading the pro-democracy struggle in the country see their legitimate struggle for democracy and against the dictatorship of the regime and their chauvinist anti-Palestinianism as one and the same fight - meaning that democracy will put political power in the hands of Transjordanian Jordanians, where it should reside, and take it out of the hands of the monarchy, which the chauvinists allege, against all existing evidence and historical facts, is an ally of Palestinian Jordanian interests.
This is not unrelated to the fact that King Abdullah is married to a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian and that his son and crown prince, Hussein, is therefore half-Palestinian. This has always bothered the chauvinists, who, however, do not seem bothered by the fact that the king himself is half-British and his former crown prince - his brother Hamzah - is half-American, presumably, because, unlike the Palestinians as depicted by the chauvinists, neither the British nor the Americans have imperial designs on Jordan at all!
As the exceedingly conservative government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Tarawneh, at the instructions of the Palace, the labile US ambassador, and the ubiquitous Jordanian Mukhabarat, insists on refusing to reform the undemocratic election law which marginalises the majority of Jordanians (especially of Palestinian Jordanians) and on holding the elections before the end of the year despite the declaration by all significant political forces in the country that they will boycott them, the reform agenda in Jordan seems closed until further notice.
Indeed, al-Tarawneh, whose education in electoral democracy is limited at best, has threatened to criminalise calls for boycotting the elections, hinting that if people do not register to vote, they could open themselves up to government prosecution.
In the meantime, former regime servants, like Marwan Muashsher (Jordan's first ambassador to Israel and the country’s former ambassador to the United States and a former minister), who is a prominent member of the pro-reform loyalist political elite, are calling for the reform of the existing electoral law (as are the Muslim Brothers and other opposition groups), as a way of defusing the popular mobilisation against the regime and ending the crudest aspects of institutionalised discrimination against Palestinian-Jordanians.
Such measures, elite reformists believe, would strengthen the regime and the government through a democratic veneer that will certainly be undercut by traditional regime co-optation of parliamentarians. Unlike the Muslim Brothers and a large part of the popular opposition in the country who call for constitutional amendments to limit the absolute power of the king, the former regime operatives limit their call to reforming the election law.
Fateh and Hamas
They seem, however, oblivious, to the fact, that even if Jordan were to enact the most democratic and representative of electoral laws, and if it were to run the freest elections (compared to past parliamentary elections, which, even Jordanian prime ministers now admit, were forged), and were to end institutionalised anti-Palestinian discrimination, none of these important measures would guarantee democracy in the country, mainly due to the basic fact of constitutional limitations on the power of Jordanian parliaments, which the King with absolute power guaranteed him by the current constitution, could dissolve at will.
That the strategy of Prime Minister al-Tarawneh is not working is evidenced by the very low turnout of Jordanians registering to vote. As a result, the government has sought to bring in Hamas and Fateh to compete for the favour of the Jordanian regime in its struggle against democratic reform. Both Fateh and Hamas have jumped at the opportunity to serve the regime and government interests in the country, in the case of Fateh as part of its attempt to salvage whatever legitimacy it can, and in the case of Hamas as part of its attempt to prove its mettle to US interests.
Fateh and Hamas were brought in to mobilise Palestinian Jordanian citizens, especially those who live in the refugee camps, and who have remained outside the ongoing popular mobilisation in the country, to register to vote and defeat the opposition's call for a boycott. Hamas was further asked, in the person of its diasporic leader, Khaled Mish'al(one of the top Hamas leaders who had been unconstitutionally barred as a Jordanian citizen from entering the country by King Abdullah in 1999) to persuade the Jordanian Muslim Brothers to relent on the boycott and participate in the elections.
The competition is now on as to who will prove to be more effective in serving US interests in Jordan, Fateh or Hamas. As Qatar has been reassuring the Americans, increasingly successfully, that the takeover of political power by Islamist forces, specifically the Muslim Brothers and kindred groups, is the best option for the US to stabilise the region for decades to come without its imperial strategy being threatened, its push to bring Hamas into the fold of US strategy may soon prove successful.
This is in line with Qatar's support of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia, as well as its support of the Muslim Brothers in Syria and assorted Islamist forces in Libya. We must bear in mind here that Mish'al's recent move to Qatar is not a new one. When King Abdullah banished him from Jordan in 1999, Mish'al went to Qatar and only moved to Syria in 2001, also under US and Israeli pressure at the time, though he remained the organisation’s most senior link to the Qataris.
Same old American crescent
In the meantime, the PA is drowning in its own miasma of corruption, tyranny and collaboration with the Israelis and the Americans. That it has very little more to offer to Israel and the US is the deciding factor in its survivability or demise and the strengthening of Hamas's legitimacy in US and Israeli eyes. We remain unsure if or when Hamas will declare to the Americans, following Arafat's humiliating performance in 1989, that its charter is "caduc" and that its anti-colonial resistance has indeed been "terrorism" all along, which it now "renounces".
It also remains unclear what kind of opposition and resistance exists within Hamas to this new political transformation. As the buzz is increasing in the Arab media about a much delayed Palestinian "spring" in the West Bank, it remains to be seen if this would help this process of substituting Hamas for Fateh along or not.
In Egypt and Tunisia, the rule of the Muslim Brothers and Ennahda party is proceeding with active oppositions (and not only of the counter-revolutionary forces of the anciens regimes which indeed remain active) and popular checks and balances and a popular insistence on the democratic functioning of governance. Moreover, as the Muslim Brothers have ideological red lines that they cannot cross easily with regards to relations with Israel, their limitations will ensure that American demands on that score will not be fully satisfied.
Popular pressure on the new regimes, as has been evidenced, will also restrict their full compliance with US strategy, especially on the economic side of it. Indeed, how far the two new regimes can go in accommodating US interests, despite their sincere commitment to them, remains to be seen.
In Libya, the instability of the new order will remain for the foreseeable future, while in Syria, the regime has recently reasserted its military power over the jihadists in Damascus and Aleppo who have hijacked the pro-democracy movement. As a result and increasingly, the outcome in Syria is no longer assured as it once was for American, Saudi and Qatari interests.
As Hamas is admitted into the US camp, the new "crescent" that is slated to dominate (part of) the region is not "Shiite" and anti-American at all, as US and Saudi propaganda and their allies have claimed for the last decade, but the very same old American crescent, headed by the old tyrannical regimes and the triumphant Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. That this is the American plan being executed for the region is clear enough, its success however is far from being certain.
Joseph Massad teaches modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University in New York.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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