GAZA — An acute struggle is emerging within the Hamas movement, which rules this coastal Palestinian strip, over the extent and nature of its Islamist identity. Guardians of religious morality, some self-appointed, others from within the government, have sought to impose their views in recent months.
So far, top government officials have pushed them back, but it remains unclear for how long.
Examples of the battle abound. The most threatening occurred in mid-August when an extreme group called the Warriors of God commandeered a mosque in the southern city of Rafah and, calling Hamas impure and collaborationist, declared strict religious law to be in force. Hamas forces surrounded the mosque and, after an all-night gun battle, killed about two dozen people, including the group’s leader, and arrested 155 others, Hamas officials said. The Interior Ministry is now monitoring mosques and sponsoring public lectures against Muslim extremism.
Other cases involved no violence but plenty of coercion. The chief justice decreed this summer that female lawyers must wear the hijab head covering in court. A committee set up by the religious affairs ministry sent men along the beaches instructing bathers not to touch each other in public and to cover up. And a number of teachers and headmistresses in girls’ high schools told their students to dress in long coats and hijab rather than the jean skirts of past years.
All of those rules have already been reversed. Prime Minister Ismail Haniya told the chief justice, Abed al-Raouf Halabi, to rescind his order to female lawyers, and he did so.
Continue reading the main storyThe education minister, Mohammed Asqoul, called any new uniform requirement “an individual act.”
“The government and Hamas have nothing to do with it,” he said. “I’m against such orders since there is no need to impose the hijab in a conservative society.”
Khalil al-Hayya, a senior political leader in Hamas, said: “Neither the government nor Hamas has come out with any decision regarding such orders. We are an Islamic resistance movement that will never oblige anyone against his or her will. Advice is the best tactic.”
Iyad el-Serraj, a psychiatrist and close observer here, said there was little doubt that Gaza, long a religiously and socially conservative place, was increasingly so. Without instruction from above, the vast majority of women wear religiously modest dress and more and more men are bearded. No alcohol is sold.
Dr. Serraj attributes the shift to several developments beyond the fact that such an outward expression of identity is increasingly common across the Muslim Middle East. Hamas, he noted, has been in power for more than two years and those in midlevel positions of power, as well as those aspiring for such jobs, want to be noticed and promoted.
Second, he said, with the economy completely stalled because of the blockade of Gaza led by Israel, there is little to do and little horizon for advancement or development. In such circumstances, he suggested, fundamentalism finds fertile ground.
But Hamas, despite favoring Islamic law and behavior, has many reasons for pushing back. Its rival, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, uses any hint of the imposition of religious law as evidence that Hamas is not capable of running a responsible, modern government. Hamas is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Israel, and is seeking international legitimacy to be the leader of the Palestinian movement.
It rejects Israel’s right to exist and remains doctrinally committed to its destruction. However, its leaders have said several times that if Israel were to leave all land taken in the 1967 war, Hamas could accept a Palestinian state limited to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, depending on the terms of a truce.
A hard-line leader in Gaza said Hamas was deluding itself if it thought moderation would lead to international acceptance. “The world will never recognize us and will never end the siege,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He added that perhaps imposing religious law “will scare them and force them to end the siege.”
For the small number of relatively secular Palestinians in Gaza, the growing push toward a more Islamic life is deeply worrying.
Ahmed Shawa, 18, said that when he asked friends for a back massage on the beach recently, a man wearing civilian clothing intervened. He said there should be no touching and instructed Mr. Shawa to put on a shirt. When he and his friends asked for an explanation, the man said: “The way you sit is satanic. You invite the devil to play in your heads.”
Mr. Shawa, who plays basketball, also said he was walking home from the stadium recently and was stopped by a man wearing Pakistani-style clothing who told him not to wear shorts or a sleeveless shirt. When Mr. Shawa argued, the man threatened him, saying, “Next time, I’ll use the other way.”
The morals committee that sends such men around the streets is against mixing of the sexes, against men’s wearing “feminine” clothing and against the sale of posters, books, magazines and DVDs that violate strict morals. The men have visited cafes, asking owners not to serve women the traditional shisha water pipes smoked throughout the region.
At the start of the school year in late August, a number of high school girls were told to return home to cover their heads and dress in the long coat known as the jilbab. In the wealthier sections of Gaza City, many were unhappy.
“It’s the first time in my life to cover my hair and to wear a jilbab, and I feel suffocated,” said Domoua al-Ali, 16, on a recent day. The moment she stepped out of the school, Ms. Domoua and her friend Dinah Nasrallah, 17, opened the buttons of the jilbab and proudly showed their tight jeans, then turned the hijab into a scarf around their neck. They mocked their religion teacher who explained the order this way: “It’s God who called for the hijab, not the headmistress. How can we forbid what he called for?”
Outside Ahmed Shawqi School, another circle of girls was led by Aziza Doghmosh, 16. She, too, removed the hijab the moment she stepped out of school and complained about her teacher. “My teacher said when you wear a tight skirt and shirt, the devil plays in the head of men,” she said to the laughter of her friends.
While only 20 girls among more than 800 did not abide by the new dress code during the first week of school, the number rose by the second week. But in the more conservative and less well-off eastern part of Gaza City, all complied, even after the rule was officially lifted.
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